


Latibule

by drinkbloodlikewine, whiskeyandspite



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Blood, First Kiss, Graphic Depictions of Torture, Happy Ending, Historical AU, Inquisition AU, Intimacy, M/M, Religious Blasphemy, Sadism, Slow Burn, Touching, Violence, mason verger - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-13
Updated: 2015-09-07
Packaged: 2018-04-08 10:51:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 34,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4301934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drinkbloodlikewine/pseuds/drinkbloodlikewine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeyandspite/pseuds/whiskeyandspite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“</i>Tell<i> me,” he says again, “if you have </i>ever<i> looked into the face of another, and seen evil incarnate.”</i></p><p>
  <i>His throat clicks when he swallows, and Will inclines his head, diverting his gaze.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“I have.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Not like this,” Mason insists.</i>
</p><p>Set during the Inquisition in Germany. Descriptions of graphic historical torture, be warned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [diedofennui](https://archiveofourown.org/users/diedofennui/gifts).



> For the amazing [Ponfarrtingspock](http://ponfarrtingspock.tumblr.com/) who requested this AU and allowed us to go wild with it. We did change a few things, but the commissioner agreed to the changes. We hope you like it bb! Unfortunately it does get worse before it gets better!
> 
> Beta'd by our amazing [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/) who has to suffer with us so often. Thank you bb <3

It is incorrect to say that Will arrives early to the witch-house.

He never leaves.

It is equally incorrect to say that Will awakens early at the witch-house.

He rarely sleeps.

Laid prone across his straw-stuffed mattress, he watches the promise of dawn turn the sky red through warped glass. Scatters of scarlet light spread across the vaulted wooden ceiling. Will notes the shapes they take, forming into larger pools. He wonders if there is a sign in them of things to come.

Blood.

He dreams of blood.

The young priest drags himself from bed before the crimson has time to shift to gold, to light, to the white that bespeaks forgiveness that is his to give, not to claim. His feet click against the floor as he pads across his small quarters to the basin full with sweet well water. He drinks as he brings it to his face to wash the lack of sleep from his eyes.

Will flinches, body taut with aches, as he slips into his cassock. The hood pooled thick around his throat, he adjusts as best he can to the sensation of being softly strangled. It is intentionally so, as in everything they do - a reminder of his own mortality, he wagers. Perhaps more realistically, a reminder of how few tailors will dare adjust a priest’s garments. He cinches the corded cincture around his waist, and forgoes the biretta atop his head or the long ferraiolo across his shoulders. There’s no reason for such formalities, and the cape in particular risks being snared. He learned that the hard way, once, when he was held by it and restrained, nearly suffocated before his cries were heard.

The wool scrapes against his skin, dyed to such a lightless black that it will show no stains.

That matters here. It never did before.

His steps are muffled by slippers as he closes the door to his room, and descends to the floor beneath. Bible tucked under his arm, he is grateful for the quiet this early. The head inquisitor will sleep late, and take breakfast in his room. And the others…

Will tries to rub away the pressure beneath his eyes as he makes his way to the chapel.

The seats are empty. Why they bothered to build the stiff-backed benches at all defies him daily. The only ones who come here are those for whom morning prayer is a blessing unsought, unwarranted, or both. The townsfolk shun the building entirely, crossing the road rather than passing too near its doors.

They shun him now, too. They never did before.

Once, the cross would have helped him ease his mind and heart. Once, just sitting in the chapel would have brought comfort to him, silence and calm. But even here, even in this holy place, Will’s head throbs with an agony he cannot explain or control. An agony that keeps him awake at night and plagues him during the day.

He prays, as he does every morning, every night, every moment he can. He prays for guidance and for wisdom. He prays to be allowed to understand his role, his reason for being here, for God. He prays that today, if only just today, he will see no lies, he will see no falsehoods. That he will not see an innocent and condemn them.

But perhaps God no longer listens. Perhaps God no longer wants to save humanity, or no longer needs martyrs to remind him why he sent his Son, once, to die for them.

Will feels shunned by God, some mornings, as he never did before.

He prays despite. He prays despite the cruelties that God has shown him. He prays for the souls of those who meant _maleficium_ against mankind and he prays for those who meant only good but were caught up in the naming of names, the pointing of fingers. He prays, until his voice stops working and his knees throb.

Will prays until a voice summons him to standing and his body jerks to attention, stiff and aching. Hours have passed, if the sun’s rays sharp in his eyes are anything to go by. It is not a healing light that singes deep and throbbing into the forefront of his mind.

No.

It is a purging, by the celestial fire of the sun itself, to burn from him his own misdeeds and ignominies that keep him stirring throughout the darkness of night.

“Confessor,” comes the voice. “You are needed.”

Will lifts a hand to dismiss the acolyte who calls to him only by title, though Will knew him once by his given name. He watches the shadowy shape of the boy incline his head in deference before departing, and Will spares not a glance for the redeeming cross before himself before he turns to follow. Back, back into the hallways honeycombed by chambers that hold the accused. Back into the darkness that should provide him respite but no longer does.

“Where?”

“In the rooms below,” the acolyte answers. “Brought in this morning.”

Will tries not to think of the descent into the abyss, and lets his feet guide him from the luminous chapel. His stomach curls in hunger and dread, the sensation much the same. His hunger is an earned suffering, akin to that which he must use to compel those brought here. He deserves this. He deserves more.

Fingers against the bridge of his nose, the young priest tries to press away the pain that plagues him, as he goes to the cellar of the witch-house.

It is not a smell, it is not a sound. It is a bone-deep terror that washes over Will as he makes his way down. Every step pulls the air from his lungs, puts needles into his skin. It is helplessness and fear. It is exhaustion and nausea. It is a state of being.

Will’s headache throbs against his skull. Every scream and emotion, denial and lie, they scrape against Will’s skin like sandpaper. They make him bleed.

For a moment, he cannot breathe.

For a moment.

And then he hears the sharp laugh, the pitched displeasure, and against every pain, Will lifts his chin and forces himself forward. Even in daylight, the basement of the witch-house receives no sun. Immersed in darkness, lit only by the flickering lamps that the priests maintain - a parable in itself, as in everything they do.

“Confessor.”

Will meets the eyes of the seniormost inquisitor, as pale as ice and just as immoveable. His blonde hair is tousled, cheeks ruddy with excitement. Mason snares Will by the back of the neck and tugs him closer.

“You’re awake early,” Will says. “I did not see you at morning service.”

“No,” Mason laughs. “No. I’ve had much _larger_ concerns, confessor, much more _pressing matters_ to attend. Tell me.”

Will stops, blinking against the brightness of the lamp beside him that scatters embers burning behind his eyes. Mason steps nearer, his face illuminated by flame.

“ _Tell_ me,” he says again, “if you have _ever_ looked into the face of another, and seen evil incarnate.”

His throat clicks when he swallows, and Will inclines his head, diverting his gaze.

“I have.”

“Not like this,” Mason insists. As if Will were an errant puppy, Mason drags him by the back of his neck to stand in front of a cell. “Look.”

Will lifts his eyes to Mason.

“Not at _me_ ,” he sneers, jerking Will’s face towards the iron bars that barricade the little window into the room. “ _Him_.”

It takes a moment for Will’s eyes to adjust. Every blink sets off sparks of pain, bright as gunpowder. There is some comfort in the darkness here, at least, pressing closer to the bars to see within. The metal is cool against his brow, the air itself chilly and damp. He could sleep down here, he imagines. Perhaps he should.

In the darkness is a figure, stripped down to white linen underdrawers, gathered at the knees, and a shirt above. The ruffles hanging limp at his throat and wrists gives Will pause - this is a man of some money or stature. The manacles bound around his wrists do not help Will’s heart to beat any slower. Dark hair hangs into his face, doing little to clarify whether the marks Will sees upon the man’s face are bruises or shadow. What he is certain of, however, is that the dark stains spilling from nose to chin are blood.

“Is he injured?” Will asks, and Mason snorts.

“ _Hardly_ , William. That blood isn’t _his_.” Another whipcrack laugh snaps through the air and Will watches the man inside the cell, breathing steadily but seated upright. He is not asleep. He is listening.

“Whose, then?”

“The lawman that took him _in_ ,” answers Mason. “Tore out a chunk of his shoulder before they could bring him down.”

Immediately Will’s heart beats quicker. Such a savage cruelty, animalistic and deliberate, an instinct that human beings should be able to control - _do_ control - that overpowered and overworked mind. The words make sense, from the inquisitor. Evil incarnate. Demon perhaps. Possession likely. The words make sense.

But Will cannot rely on words. He cannot if he tried, no matter how hard he tries. Words are meaningless to Will, words lie. He closes his eyes and turns his head against the bars again and lets himself breathe. He matches the slow pace of inhale and exhale with the prisoner within, he feels his heart slow. If only, if only he could sleep now, Will would let it take him.

Images come slowly, surfacing like shimmers in the water. Fear is there, fear is always there, cloying like old sweat and dirty linens. It is a sickening scent. But beneath it, anger. Sparks of it as Will imagines himself pulled every which way, hands yanked from honest work, heart sped with the prospect of the inaccuracies that would be spilled against him.

He was doing what was right, he was doing God's work, he is a good man, an honest man, a strong man, he does not deserve this, he cannot, he -

"- had a neighbor tell us of his misdeeds," Mason continues, standing close enough to Will that his back tenses, his shoulders ache. Will opens his eyes to watch the man within the cell once more. "You would not _believe_ the things he is accused of. _Truly_ , William, we do the Lord's work _because_ of men like _him_."

Will lets his eyes settle on the poor soul within confinement. His own breath drops out of sync with the man he watches.

"Of course," he agrees softly. “Who is he?”

“A heretic.”

“His name,” Will asks again.

“ _That_ , confessor, is a _key_ to all of this,” Mason exclaims, delighted. His voice sends shards of pain splintering Will’s skull. “Even his _name_ is demonic. _Hannibal_ ,” grins the inquisitor, brows uplifted high as Will’s gaze brushes against his own.

“‘The grace of Baal’,” Will murmurs. The name has hardly passed his lips before he marks the sign of the cross obediently from brow to navel and across his chest. Trembling fingers secure themselves against the crucifix around his throat, and he lifts it to his lips as the inquisitor at his side mirrors the motions. “Baal was a god of the sun,” Will remarks, as the man within shifts and his chains clank against the packed earth. “Fertility and good fortune.”

“There is,” Mason drawls, so near to Will that his words stir his hair, “only _one_ God.”

“Of course. Misguided souls,” Will says, forcing a smile. “I will go to him.”

“Careful that he doesn’t take your nose off,” remarks the other priest, punctuating his words with a snort.

With a sigh, Will gathers himself, steps back for the door to be unlocked with heavy keys before passing through it with a guard. Within, it is freezing, and Will can see the man is shivering, sporadic spasms of tremblings over his muscles and skin. His hands he keeps clasped, before him between his knees, manacles heavy enough that they press the skin pale around them.

Will wishes he could offer him a cloak. Wishes he could offer him water and proper rest. Wishes, for a moment, that he could beg to take his place, but his work, holy as he is told daily it is, he would wish on no man. It is hardly a gift, to condemn on behalf of. It is a curse that Will has been given to bear upon his shoulders. He knows what he bears it for. He knows he deserves to.

He stops close enough to see the man but far enough that should he grow agitated, he cannot reach Will with the length of chain that holds him tethered.

They are quiet. The man does not lift his head and Will does not force him to. After several moments of shared breathing between them, Will lowers his head to gently pray, quiet words into the cold air, soft litanies and seeking forgiveness.

“Are you here to kill me?” the man asks suddenly, voice low and quiet, heavily accented, though his Latin is fluent. An educated man, highly educated, to wield Latin as the clergy do. “It is custom, at least where I am from, that when a man is prayed over in a prison cell, it is to be the last thing he hears.”

Will’s whispers hold, breath trapped in his throat for the time it takes him to process the question. His tongue parts his lips and his brow creases. He raises a hand to mark the sign of the cross over the man who sits unmoving, and Will finishes his prayer.

He steps closer, eased by the lack of reaction to the cross drawn in air, to the words that in the possessed would drive them to violence. It is fear that makes them lash out, less demonic than purely human. They know what his presence means.

The guard starts to follow but Will lifts a hand to stop him. With a whisper of his heavy cassock, Will sweeps his robes beneath him and kneels just out of arm’s reach. There is a rock beneath his knee, digging a bruise into the bone already worn sore from prayer against the stone floor of the chapel. He does not reach to remove it.

“I’m here to speak with you,” Will says, working through the Latin a little slowly. It’s trickier when it’s not only prayer and religious dialogues. “You have been accused, by a brother of the faith. Can you tell me of what he has accused you?”

“A brother of the faith,” the man repeats. His tone is low, even, but there is an anger that bubbles beneath that Will can feel like fire against his skin. “I wonder if it is a brother who had come to me regarding a rash the summer past. Or the one complaining of earache the month before that. I wonder if this _brother_ of the faith had come because I refused to provide him a treatment he claimed he needed but did not.”

He shifts, just enough to set his knees closer together and rest the manacles on top of them, easing the weight from his wrists.

“I am a doctor, Father, I heal the sick. I shudder to think the accusations against me by brothers I have refused to push to detriment by their own devising. I don’t know why I’m here.”

Will’s breath leaves him, all at once. He looks to the guard, a witness to this, and he looks across his shoulder to the door but hears no sign of the head inquisitor. He folds his hands together and rests them on his knees, digging harder into the pebble lodged beneath the left.

“You confess, then, to sorcery.”

The man’s eyes are red in the glow of the light, scant though it is, trickling in from the hallway outside. Will turns his gaze aside and focuses on the uneven stone behind.

“I do not,” Hannibal breathes. “I am a doctor.”

“Maladies are healed through prayer,” Will explains, hushed tones, whispers crushed claustrophobic in the little room that reeks of blood and fear. “You are a layman. To heal another without being one’s self annointed -”

“I heal through medicine,” the man says, voice curling curt.

“Through the knowledge that you have.”

“Yes.”

“The knowledge of - of plants, and ritual applications -”

“Yes.”

“From whence came that knowledge if not the Devil?” Will asks, voice cracking into an unsteady laugh as his fingers clench tight together.

Hannibal regards him in silence, head tilted just slightly one way, like an animal regarding a curious object. There is tension in his jaw, in his neck, and still he shivers from cold, fingertips pale with it, toes much the same. Slowly, he parts his lips with the tip of his tongue and takes a breath, and Will’s fingers grasp against his robe harder.

“Science and faith are not at war,” the doctor says gently. “When applied together they save lives, of the good honest faithful, of those who believe in their own deities.”

“There is only one God,” Will whispers.

“And are we not all equal in His eyes?” Hannibal flexes his fingers gently, and turns his head towards the little window in the door, the only source of light for him, here, the only source for slightly cleaner air than the rankness he has to breathe in his cell. “The faithful and the faithless. The lepers and the priests?”

Will swallows, lifts his eyes to the guard behind him, lowers them in a gentle dismissing. He does not speak until the man has left the room, door closing heavy behind him, leaving the two alone.

“You speak heresy.” 

“I speak truth that sounds painful to arrogant ears,” the doctor points out. “Your own Holy Book claims this, but rarely are those words of kindness used in context. Why, when cruelty is easier.”

“Those who come to God can be helped by him,” Will says. “But those who reject the teachings of the Church -”

“Is the Church God?”

“Chosen by Him,” Will whispers. His words are more plea than insistence. What other way is there than the Church? What other means to God but through those who speak to Him directly? And were this to be untrue - were Will to accept that God exists outside the designations he knows - 

“Enough,” he says, interrupting his own thoughts. “Confess to having treated the maladies of others outside of God’s healing. Tell me,” he asks, gaze darting imploring across the man’s face before lowering again. “Tell me and I will make this end quickly for you. I have that authority. I will not force you to name names, I will petition for hanging rather than the stake -”

“No.”

The doctor’s voice is calm, almost soothing in its gentleness, and he lifts his eyes as the young priest does to regard him. Dark eyes shift between Will’s light ones before the man blinks and looks away towards the door again. He has relaxed, if a little, breathing still even, body poised for motion but staying still.

“You will die -”

 

“I will die, according to your Church, regardless of what I say,” Hannibal murmurs. A frown, then, brief, before he turns to look at Will once more. “Would you betray your faith, for fear?”

The question cuts deep as a dagger, and Will’s brows draw in. He bows his head and spreads his fingers, interlocked, to ease their tension just as he leans forward, harder, onto the rock that he can feel tingling all the way up to his hip. He has not, ever. He would not, ever. Not from fear, not from gentler feelings still, those that come upon him at night when he is alone and tease questions in shadowed whispers.

“No,” Will says, licking his lower lip between his teeth and shaking his head. “But your faith is against God. The Church has declared heresy as akin to witchcraft, and the healing to which you admit,” he breathes a laugh, forcing his gaze to meet Hannibal’s, forcing it to hold. “Faith in the Devil will not protect you from the judgment of God. Listen,” he whispers, “listen when I tell you that there are worse fates than death.”

“Given in the name of your merciful God?” Hannibal asks him softly, and there is no anger there, then. There is no hate or sneering, there is just a resigned exhaustion. He knows as well as Will does, that he will not leave this cell unharmed, he will most likely not leave it alive. Will wonders where the man keeps that well of courage, and why he, a man of God, a man of Justice, trembles.

“I will not forsake or betray my work for fear,” Hannibal tells him. “A death in dishonor is a fate worse than death, indeed.”

He sits back, then, drawing his manacled hands to his stomach and resting back against the freezing, damp stone wall. He closes his eyes and swallows, allows his decision to wash over him like rain, as Will watches. As he hopes, prays silently, that the doctor will change his mind. He does not know. He does not understand what awaits him should he not confess and reform. He does not know, but Will does, Will has seen it, Will has seen enough to last him in every eternal lifetime.

“Please,” he tries again, soft, and at this, the doctor opens his eyes again, lifting them to the ceiling. A moment more of silence, and then he takes a breath, slow, careful, through his nose, and exhales again.

“You may try valerian root,” he murmurs, “to sleep. The rest will ease your headaches.”

In his desperation, he had mercifully forgotten the thrum inside his head, thudding dull and steady behind his eyes, as if his skull were too small to contain whatever hammers within. It hurts, down the back of his neck and scraping numbness down to his fingers. His eyes narrow as he regards the man at rest before him.

Will does not ask how he knows.

That he knows is enough.

“I will pray for you,” Will tells him, as he sets his palms to the ground and works himself slowly upward. He staggers but stops himself from falling, the wave of dizziness undulating the floor beneath his feet, and his left leg wholly numb from the rock beneath it. The doctor takes in the young priest once more, the pallor in his skin more befitting a man three times his age than Will himself, the curl of his shoulders, the ache present in every movement.

“You need it more than I,” Hannibal tells him, and Will does not answer before he lets the door slam shut behind.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I wonder,” Will ventures, “if we are not smiting the whole crop for the presence of a few weeds.”
> 
> Mason’s fingers still against the bread. His brows raise. Will wonders in the stark and sudden silence if he has not stepped too far, too close to aligning himself with those that they have been tasked to purge. It is, he wagers, only a matter of time until he says the wrong word, takes the wrong action, and finds himself locked away instead.
> 
> They will use him as a lesson, then, that even a devout man of the cloth can be swayed by Satan’s whispered words.
> 
> Perhaps they would not be wrong in saying so.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by our intrepid and wonderful [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/)!

The next day, Will finds that he cannot sate his thirst. The water tastes bitter from the well, when it always tasted sweet. It feels warm when it was always cold. And no matter how many cups Will fills and finishes, he does not feel watered, does not feel healed. He prays in fever for hours in the chapel before dawn, and finds only that his body shakes more when he stands, summoned once more to his duty by an acolyte.

The table set before himself and Mason is laden with fruits and meat and cups of wine, and Will can feel his stomach churn from the very sight of it. He has not eaten, not for several days, and he asks, instead, for another cup of water instead of the wine, ignoring Mason’s barking laugh when it is brought to him.

It does not sate him. Will does not ask for another.

There is a constant reeking in the witch house, never anything Will can place, but if he is outside, if he is in the garden or in the town, he will recognize it when he returns. It is lingering and heavy, a smell of despair and fear. It chokes him and stifles him, and Will wonders if he will ever wash that scent from his skin. He wonders if he deserves to.

“Have you added a vow of _poverty_ to all the rest?” Mason asks. In his fingers he tears apart a fig, its sticky juices sluicing to the wooden plate beneath. “You know that means you can still _eat_. All of this was _donated_ , _given_ to us by _faithful penitents_.”

Will watches the inquisitor bring the fruit to his lips and suck, obscenely noisy, dripping down his chin. His belly revolts and he sets his fingers to his cup of wine, without lifting it.

“Were I hungry,” Will answers, “I would eat.”

Mason slips forward across the table, arms sprawling long, cassock sleeves dragging over the smooth wood. “What are we to _do_ with it all then?” he laughs, each burst crackling in Will’s ears and sending rivets of pain down his spine.

“Generosity, perhaps. For those beneath.”

Another cackle and Mason lets his head drop to the table with a quiet thump. Will has wondered, more than he cares to consider, what cruelties had touched this man to make him this way. No longer a man of the cloth for the mercy and the kindness, for the understanding and forgiveness that God teaches. Now he is a man hungry to see others hurt, masking it behind the need for justice.

Will’s stomach roils once more.

“We cannot _return it_ to the people who _gave_ it to us, William. It would be denying them their right to their faith, their _choice_ to be generous and _faithful_ to _God_.”

“Those who did not give, then,” Will tries. “The poor and hungry seeking sanctuary in the churches, for warmth overnight.”

“God will help them,” Mason says, sitting up once more and reaching for some bread, still warm from being baked that very morning. “They seek for _Him_ and _He_ will grant them mercy as He sees _fit_.” Mason shrugs, sitting back and pushing his sleeves up his arms as he takes up his cup of wine. “We are not, William, to consider ourselves _Him_ , that would be _blasphemous_. We are merely _conduits_ for Him to do His divine work. We are to speak for Him, our lives _dedicated_ to the Holy Order.”

Will’s jaw sets, mouth twisting crooked. He thumbs at a cranny on the wooden cup and flick by flick loosens a splinter from it. For a moment, he considers driving his nail against it, so that he might feel if only for an instant the pain that their captives feel, when iron is introduced beneath the nail until it splits. Perhaps it would ease his mind to create a greater pain than the endless torment he suffers already.

He takes up the splinter and pulls it free, flicking it to the floor.

“Are we not acting as Him,” Will asks, carefully, “when we extract confessions?”

“On His _behalf_ ,” Mason sighs. He shoves himself back into his chair and drags the bread with him, latching into it with cruel fingers to tear off a chunk. “What care should we have _anyway_ for those who have _rejected_ Him? I understand the doctor was _less_ than cooperative in this regard.”

Will blinks, blue eyes darting upward, and then back to his empty plate. “I’ve hardly spoken to him.”

“And yet, I _know_ ,” the inquisitor replies, a grin splintering his lips apart. “There are ears _everywhere_ , William, _everywhere_ that there is something _interesting_ to _hear_. And that one seems _particularly_ unrepentant. No better than _animals_ at that point, _fornicating_ with Satan in exchange for _unnatural knowledge_.”

“He claims to heal,” Will murmurs, knowing he will be interrupted, counting on it so that, despite the throb of agony through his skull, he will not have to speak again as Mason rants.

“He _claims_ to heal, William? He _claims_? Does he _pray_ at the altar? Does he go to _confession_ and seek to make _himself_ clean before claiming - _claiming_ \- to cleanse others? How many have _claimed_ , Will, that were _not_ heretics? How many have _sobbed_ and _screamed_ and _begged_ their innocence? None of them, William, _none of them_ are innocent. The lawmen know their _work_ , _we_ know our work. The Church, William, _God_ , this is _His_ work. His decree. He does not make mistakes.”

Will swallows, gestures gently for another cup of water, vision blurring from pain, head spinning from fever. His eyes feel too hot and his lungs too small to sustain him. Perhaps this is his punishment, eternally, to listen to truths masked as lies, to send innocents to suffering and not take their place.

He takes the cup gratefully and drinks the water down.

He deserves it. For what he is, for what he wants. He deserves it and he will suffer gratefully.

But the people, the women and children and students dragged forth for judgement, they do not. Surely they do not.

“I wonder,” Will ventures, “if we are not smiting the whole crop for the presence of a few weeds.”

Mason’s fingers still against the bread. His brows raise. Will wonders in the stark and sudden silence if he has not stepped too far, too close to aligning himself with those that they have been tasked to purge. It is, he wagers, only a matter of time until he says the wrong word, takes the wrong action, and finds himself locked away instead.

They will use him as a lesson, then, that even a devout man of the cloth can be swayed by Satan’s whispered words.

Perhaps they would not be wrong in saying so.

“Weeds,” Mason snorts, dismissive enough that Will allows himself to breathe again. “Weeds that appear just like the healthy plants, _weeds_ that will _replicate_ and _strangle_ the desirable crops. _Weeds_ , William, that are an affront not only to we who _tend_ the field, but to those who _own_ it. _God_. The _Church_. No,” he decides. “Keep your parables and burn the whole forsaken field.”

At this, Will can only offer a wan smile.

“We are,” he tells Mason, settling back when the inquisitor seems pleased by this conclusion. Will looks to the window, but the light from without is scalding, so bright that it parts his lips in a pain scarcely suppressed from being given voice. “I have not seen him at any services before. His accent is from outside our territories.” A pause, and Will feels the pull of a smile too tight for him to give leave to appear. “He speaks Latin.”

"Education _hardly_ absolves a man of _heresy_. It is a gift given to few, and should remain that way. _We_ are educated in God's law. We _understand_ the importance of such a lesson. We _know_ that God's truth is the _only_ truth. Men unprepared for such a heavy burden as _education_ claim their heresies as truths. They claim _God_ no longer is their master, and that they will _surpass_ Him."

Will closes his eyes, rests back, and just listens. He thinks of the doctor’s soothing voice, the way his accent rolled the consonants and drew out the vowels to make the emphases strange. He thinks of his advice and swallows down the bile in his throat.

He aches.

He aches everywhere.

He dreamt, the night before, of a figure seated on his chest. An oppressive weight bearing down on his ribs, hands against his throat. Faceless, formless when he tried to see the finer details of the figure, Will struggled to escape but found himself held in place. No breath would fill him to allow him to pray, no sweat was enough to cool his skin as it heated in his thrashing. An unholy figure, it lowered against his mouth with its own, to suck the soul from him and only then did Will awake, hurtling himself to the floor in his frenzy. His nightgown clung transparent to his skin from sweat.

An ill-omen, at best.

And at worst…

“I want _names_ ,” Mason sighs. “Have you _seen_ how empty are our rooms in the vestibule? It makes _us_ appear _incompetent_. Were the Prince-Bishop to arrive, what would he _think_ to see our _work_ so _lacking_?”

“That we have eradicated witchcraft from the region,” Will suggests, running a hand against his throat. He looks to his fingers, glistening with sweat, and wipes them against his cassock. “That we have been effective in scourging out the rash of Satanists.”

“You _would_ like to think that, _wouldn’t_ you? Prim and proper _William_ , always so _terribly clever_. Best in lessons and best as acolyte, _now_ the best _witchfinder_ who’s defeated _Satan himself._ No. _No_ ,” Mason barks, and Will tilts his head aside as the sound echoes and amplifies between his ears, throbbing. “You will bring me names from the _foreigner_ , or I’ll be forced to _wonder_ , William, as to your _capabilities_.”

_Your capabilities._

Will’s capabilities were silence and cleverness, a quickness and fondness for learning. He had told his father when he was very young that he wanted to go into the priesthood, he had told him it was for the lessons, for Latin and German, for the beautiful Bibles and the word of the Lord. He had told him and his father had let him go, and it had been Will’s first lie that snowballed into his entire life.

He had hoped to escape himself here.

He had hoped to be allowed to be locked away, bread and water, candlelight and ink, transcribing book after book, bent over a little table with nothing to listen to but the silence of the catacombs. 

He had hoped.

And the Lord had seen not his hope but his lie, and in His blessing of Will with his mind, had forced him to use it for this. A mind that cannot accept lies, a mind that can read others as though their voice speaks clear and loud in his ears when they say nothing at all. A personal punishment. A constant reminder.

Will makes a sound of understanding, quiet pain that can pass for agreement and acquiescence. It is enough, for now, for Mason, who just grunts back.

“If we want to _eradicate_ witchcraft, William, we have to _eradicate_ it. Entirely. Should the world burn for our efforts I hardly consider that a _sacrifice_ on our part.”

"No," Will agrees. "Not on our part."

All the plants and animals, women and men, children - Will sees them scourged from the earth in a flash of white-hot light. They would go with them, then, were God so merciful as to see his creation brought to such a sudden end. There would be no need to battle against Satan's wiles any longer.

No need for extraction of truths by way of iron bolts and bars.

No need for atonement with spilled blood and raw muscle twitching scarlet.

No need for Will to submit to the spoiled boy who sits across from him now, as he did in their lessons, his wealth enough to assuage any worry of ever befalling misfortune.

No need for Will to contend with the thoughts that plague him, sinful desires that tug at his weak flesh and rend his heart as easily as Mason's thumbs dug apart his fig.

"Bring in the boy."

Will blinks. "We're having breakfast -"

" _You're_ not," Mason points out, before lifting a hand to dismiss the acolyte on his duty.

Will’s breath leaves him and he wonders, for a moment, if he won’t faint right then. He closes his eyes. He cannot, not before Mason, not over this. He will weather this storm as he does every other, every day, and only when he has finished evening prayers, only when he has taken his meagre meal will he collapse into bed. Only then.

Moments or hours pass and Will opens his eyes once more and wishes he hadn’t. The boy doesn’t look older than seven, shivering in just his underthings, little hands bound in one manacle, wrists too small for one each, and too large for the one. His fingers are purpling and there is a cut from the rough metal against his pale skin.

He stands, terrified, and looks between the two men at the table. Looks at the meal before them and swallows. Will wonders when he last ate. He wonders what he last ate, and if he has seen fresh bread at all in his young life.

“Can you speak?” Will asks him gently, German soft, just lilted enough in the southern dialect to catch the boy’s attention. He waits for the little thing to nod. “What’s your name?”

“Christoph,” he whispers, and Will and the boy flinch in tandem as Mason’s fist comes down against the table.

“What a _good_ , _Christian_ name,” he sighs. “Christoph, do you know why you’re _here_?”

The dark-haired little boy, dull eyes rimmed with the charcoal-grey rings of sleeplessness, shakes his head.

“ _No_ idea at _all_?” The inquisitor slumps back in his chair, watery gaze condensing, sharpening as he takes in the child before him.

“They took me,” whispers Christoph.

“Because _you_ were seen _defiling_ a _Bible_. Now,” Mason declares, lifting his hands with enough energy that he drives himself from his seat, shoes clicking against the floor. “ _What_ would drive a little boy to _do_ something so _blasphemous_ as _tearing pages_ in a holy text?”

Will does not look away from the child. He must not. His gift, his burden, the millstone around his neck and placed there by God echoes fear from the little boy, a terror so visceral that Will feels his hands begin to shake in sympathy with the boy’s trembling. The cruelty of clarity does not let him believe this as possession. No devils move his hands.

How simple an explanation that would be.

“Come,” Will says, beckoning the boy closer. “Let me remove the cuff.”

Will waits as the boy studies his hand, shivering so hard that the iron rattles. He can hardly move his fingers, and Will flexes his own as if it might help, as if it might relieve the pain somehow, some way.

By grace, perhaps.

By mercy.

“Please,” Will asks again. 

The little one’s breath catches, hitches faster, and his eyes lift to meet Will’s and then dart away again. It takes only that long for him to look at Will and see the truth of his character. It takes only that long for a part of Will to split apart inside, wrenching bone and sinew.

He is not the one who provides grace or mercy any longer.

“Let him go,” Will whispers to Mason, moving to stand.

“Let him _go_?”

“Yes.” Will’s jaw works and he stands to move closer to the boy, gesturing to the guard who brought him up to come near and obey. He has as much sway as Mason, here, they are both of rank to make decisions in the name of God. He can hear the scoffing behind him and ignores it, instead he watches as the boy’s hands are freed, as he cries out when the blood rushes from them again, as feeling returns to cold little fingers - if it does at all.

“Tell me,” Will coaxes, close enough that if he reached out he could touch the dirty dark hair on the little boy’s head. “Tell me why you tore the Bible.”

“What _possessed_ you,” Mason sneers from behind Will. “What could _possibly_ excuse such an act of _disrespect_ and heresy?”

Christoph turns wide eyes to Will again, brimming with tears now, from the pain in his hands, from the terror of being here, alone. He sniffs, just once, and shakes his head.

“We were cold,” he breathes. “We - my little brother - we just needed to start a fire. There was nothing else left. I only used the back page, the very last one, with no words on it, no pictures, we were just -”

“ _Burning_ the _Bible_ ,” Mason exclaims, and Christoph takes a step back from the sound of his voice alone. Will soothes him with a gentle lifting of his fingers.

“Did you burn it?” he asks, and the little boy shakes his head.

“It wouldn’t catch -”

Mason lets out a groan that builds quickly into a laugh. Dropping his arms to his sides, he lets them hang for only an instant before lunging forward, robes snapping, hands curling into fists at the boy, at the priest beside him. “ _What_ other _sign_ do you _need_?”

“It was wet -”

The inquisitor lifts a hand to quiet the boy, two fingers uplifted as when giving blessing, all his fingers slowly curling to a fist as he turns back to face Will.

“ _God_ did not allow the pages to be burnt. _God_ stopped Satan’s _fire_ from consuming the pages. In _spite_ of what _this one_ attempted -”

“Attempted,” Will interjects, shaking his head. “But did not succeed. Christoph, where is the page?”

“There was nothing on it,” the boy sobs, as much in agony from the freedom in his hands as from desolate fear wracking his body to shuddering. “There wasn’t any writing -”

“Where,” asks Will again. “Where did you put it?”

“Back in the Bible,” the boy whispers.

Will swallows. The boy is innocent. To any witness, the boy is innocent of everything but being poor. He cannot see this boy punished for trying to protect his brother. He cannot see him suffer for trying to survive when survival alone was hard enough for him.

“Did you go to confession?” Will asks him, and Christoph nods quickly, bringing up a hand to wipe beneath his nose with a sniff as he begins to cry in earnest.

“I went and I told the pastor and he told me to go home and they took me away -”

“He should _burn_ for how the _Bible_ burned -”

“The Bible didn’t burn,” Will interrupts, eyes still on the boy, on the way his fingers tremble. He waits until Christoph lowers his hands again, one shifting as it regains feeling, the other still, dark and cold and unmoving.

It is punishment enough. Will feels ill.

“It did not burn and he sought to be redeemed for his sin. The boy is _innocent_ , Mason.” Will holds Mason’s gaze for long enough to accept the anger in it, but as he draws a breath, Will turns away, towards the guard. “Take him home. Give him my share of breakfast. My appetite has gone.”

There is an instant when everything hangs. But for the movement of uncertain gazes shared between all but Will, who seeks only the door, a profound and deafening silence lasts for the length of a single heartbeat. In that moment, Will’s head does not ache. In that moment, the millstone he wears as his stole is lightened.

Grace and mercy, in the blink of an eye.

His heel contacts the ground and the guard moves, as told. Christoph begins to cry and the sound drives iron nails through Will’s eyes, a pain so intense he sees light and yet nothing, nothing compared to the snarl of Mason barreling out of the room behind him.

“I have nothing to say,” Will interrupts, “that I have not already said.”

“You’ve said _more_ than enough,” Mason agrees. “Have you _forgotten_ which of us studied in Rome? Have _you_?”

“You never let me.”

“If I didn’t _know_ better - or maybe my _faith blinds_ me - I would have _suspicions_. Suspicions that the _bishops_ would _certainly_ be interested in hearing.”

Will lowers his hand from his eyes and steps towards Mason, until his back hits the wall. Hand fisted beside his head, Will whispers, low, lips curled over clenched teeth.

“Think carefully what you say to them. There are some sins that supersede any amount of political pull,” he breathes. “And when you bare my misdeeds, you open the gate to your own.” Will’s eyes search between Mason’s before he steps away again, the floor tilting beneath his feet. “Think well on it.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Would it be too simple to just ask for your confession?”
> 
> The pause he earns is savored, just as much as the doctor’s single, soft snort.
> 
> “And leave you bereft of challenge?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by our beloved [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/)!

The agony in his head and the nausea it brought forward exhausted Will enough within two days to the point of losing consciousness during Mass. He was granted leave to rest, confined to his rooms where an acolyte brought him meals and water and stayed by the door should the priest need anything.

Will doesn’t remember if he slept, he doesn’t remember anything but the illness, nothing but the fever and heaviness of his limbs. He remembers praying for death, and waking up regardless.

The third day, cleared by his superior to walk from room to room, Will spends in prayer, the chapel cooler than his room, if a little lighter. On the fourth day, Will makes his way to the cellar of the witch house. He had been reminded, by a gleeful Mason over breakfast taken together again, that Mason wanted names. That he wanted names _now_ before capabilities and faith are pulled into question.

“He didn’t respond to _physical_ torture, not the _first time_ , but witches rarely do. Their _magic_ protects them, all they do is _scream_ and _cry_. He did, well enough, but I want him _broken_.”

Will wonders what names Mason would yield, what lies and truths would spill like bile from his lips, were he subjected to the same pain he so happily gives to others.

The cellar is still at this hour. The prayers for vespers that saw the sun’s fading rays into darkness have long since quieted. It is a duty that Will volunteered for, knowing he must make strides to right the doubt that Mason has in him. He is not wrong to doubt; if anything, he is unintentionally correct. Will’s faith wavers in a way he never thought it might, when God asks of him deeds that he never could have imagined.

The cool air is a balm against his skin, easing aching muscles pulled too tight for days from the illness that struck him down. It will be a relief to sit here for a while. He is certain the man will not speak to him, perhaps only enough to curse Will for his work. The heavy latch against the door thuds open, and Will leaves the door open to allow in a little more light from the vestibule.

“Good evening,” Will says to the solemn figure seated on the floor. He draws in a breath and regrets it; it smells foul here, by no fault of anyone but the adherents who think little enough of keeping the accused in such a way. It was determined, by the leaders of the faith, that those who keep company with Satan should not be afforded luxury.

Clean quarters are considered a luxury.

Access to food and water is considered a luxury.

Light and fresh air are considered luxuries.

Sleep is a luxury, and that is what will be denied to Hannibal tonight.

“Is it evening?” Hannibal replies softly. His voice is rougher than the first time they spoke together, lower. His breathing hitches in a way that suggests he is fighting sleep, unable to get any for however long he has been kept awake. He sits still, he sits almost regally, considering he is dressed in filthy underclothes upon a damp stone floor.

He does not lift his head but Will can see that his eyes are open, perhaps watching his hands set in his lap, perhaps looking further still, into the middle ground one’s eyes can find and no one else can share.

“It is several hours, now, since dusk,” Will confirms, moving further into the room and taking with him a small stool from outside the door, to sit upon. The doctor draws another shivered breath and holds it before exhaling, shoulders bending forward before he forces them straight again. His hands look unharmed, nails not removed by burning iron or thin cane rods. There is no more blood on his shirt than there had been when Will first met him.

Will wonders how much water is in his lungs.

“Should you not be in your prayer?” Hannibal asks after a while.

It takes Will a moment to recognize the sensation he feels. It is a smile, tugged wan but gathering in the corners of his eyes. He settles onto the stool and leans his back against the wall, out of reach. Will watches the man, lit in amber along his contours from the lamps outside. His wide shoulders speak of laboring; the fine chiseled curves of his face, nobility.

“I cannot think of a time of day that I do not ask myself the same,” Will admits. He rests his head against the cool stone, and the smile shifts to a grimace. “But to answer, I have said the prayers for vespers, not yet for compline. If you will not speak to me tonight, then I might say those now and we will begin the night’s great silence.”

It is not a demand - it is a gentler thing. A jest, perhaps, in some warped form of what a joke might have been in another place, between other people.

A hum, barely above the sound of breath, but enough to notice, and Will watches the doctor gently curl his fingers into his palms and out again, flexing them, feeling them move. The manacles have left angry red abrasions against his wrists. His left seeps clear, and the doctor seems unperturbed. Perhaps he is used to the pain.

Will swallows, and prepares to part his lips to speak again when he is gently interrupted.

“Of what shall we speak, little priest?”

He knows the feeling now when he smiles, and secure in the quiet dark, he does not dissuade it from lingering. Will folds his hands into his lap, cassock sleeves long across his fingers, and he adjusts until its hood is tucked between his head and the wall. Whatever the cause for this comfort, Will wonders at it but does not question. It is a rarity to feel any semblance of ease; a blessing that the sharp sparks of light behind his eyes have dulled to a pulsing numbness.

“Would it be too simple to just ask for your confession?”

The pause he earns is savored, just as much as the doctor’s single, soft snort.

“And leave you bereft of challenge?”

“Will it be one?”

“Like drawing blood from a stone.”

Will hums, considering. “I don’t suppose you’re capable of doing that, too.”

“No,” Hannibal answers, with thin amusement.

“Something simple then,” Will says. “Where are you from? I’ve spent my life in this village, and have never seen you.”

“When did you last leave this house?”

A breath catches, and Will’s brow creases. Months and months. Years. He has not left the walls of the witch-house since the headaches began, since he spent more nights cleaning blood from his hands than offering communion. Those rare moments where he found his hand against the door, he was stayed time and again by the thought of facing those townspeople - family, friends - who knew him before.

“Before you came here,” Will clarifies.

The doctor says nothing, breathing even and slow, and for one frightful moment Will wonders if he has fallen asleep, if he has failed at his task to keep the man awake. A moment, two, and Will closes his eyes as well, relishing the cool darkness against his fevered eyelids and scalp. He feels like he can breathe, for the first time in days.

“I am not from here,” Hannibal murmurs at length, and Will startles from his rest, sitting forward, forcing himself awake. “I am not from anywhere. I move as demand moves me.”

“Will you not settle?”

Here, the doctor moves, a languid stretch of his shoulders as he tilts his head back and takes a slow, meditative breath.

“Perhaps I will settle here,” he replies, dry. “In the bowels of the beast of religious justice.”

Will’s smile withers and fades. He thinks of the boy released days before, and the savagery that snarled the features of the other inquisitor. For a moment, Will wonders what cruelties would erupt were he to try the same again. It is a selfishness that stills his hand, now, knowing how he would be held accused instead of the man with him in the cell. The illnesses that have plagued him, the headaches running riot - all would be construed as signs of possession, and Will himself declared as a traitor to the Church, in league with Satan and his acolytes.

Will works his fingers against his eyes, a hum softened behind his hand.

He pulls himself up from the stool, robes whispering against his feet. It is dangerous to come too close - the doctor’s strength is visible beneath his underclothes, coiled tight, his face still smeared with another’s blood. Will asks a question in silence, brow uplifting, and receives his answer in a graceful tilt of Hannibal’s head. If he will be here all night, he will make it as tolerable as he can.

A luxury granted to him, that he can share by proxy with another.

The priest steps close enough only to take up the pail used for waste. He leaves it outside the door and makes his way to the end of the hall to rinse his hands in the basin of water meant for confessors and acolytes alone. His hands still within it, and after a moment’s consideration, he lifts the heavy ewer from beside and carries it back to the cell. Standing at distance from Hannibal, Will’s jaw tightens as he swallows.

“Stand in the corner, please,” Will asks. “Face it until I ask you to move again.”

Will waits, arms clasped around the pitcher, and averts his eyes as the doctor unfolds his legs with a wince. Unsteady after so long unmoving, Hannibal sets his manacled hands to the wall and rests his forehead to the stone corner. Only then does Will bend to set the pitcher close enough for the man to reach.

“You said that others in the town have visited you. Sought your abilities, your claims of healing,” Will murmurs. “Will you give me their names?”

“And indict myself further?”

“And save yourself being forced to speak them,” Will says.

"I will not condemn honest people seeking help for their pain," the doctor replies. He is articulate, learned, but even still his words slur slightly at the ends, exhaustion weighing them down with a deeper accent. He sways slightly against the wall before resting his shoulder to it.

"And condemn yourself to torture thus?"

"You condemned me," Hannibal points out gently, and Will notices he uses the plural. It is not an accusation. Even now it is not an accusation. Will swallows.

"Drink."

The doctor turns his head just enough to see the pitcher and presses his lips together, dry, now, from lack of drink. He must be parched here, starved and kept from water and sleep. Soon he will confess in rants and ravings, and find his new accusation one of possession as well as heresy.

"They will know," Hannibal says softly, "and punish you."

Will moves away again, towards his stool against the opposite wall. A tug of pain closes his eyes as he sits and settles once more. Perhaps the doctor is right. Perhaps not. Will holds tenuous authority still, no matter how skillfully the head inquisitor tries to pry his fingers loose of it.

“An act of necessity,” he recites, “to ensure your corporeal form does not give way before we can gather the information we need. It would be premature to let you perish without gleaning the names of those who have equally courted Satan’s favor.”

Folding his arms around his middle, Will leaves his eyes closed. Darkness inside of darkness, enshrouded by shadow as he is his cassock. A sigh pushes free of him and his tone loosens, conversational and soft-spoken once more.

“Do or do not. It is yours to wash with, yours to drink. It is yours to tip across the floor if you like. When I leave, it comes with me. Why should you care what becomes of me for it?”

Hannibal considers the pitcher once more, turns his head just enough to see the young man folded almost in half in pain by the door. In truth, he could run. Pretend to be ill, uncooperative, enough to draw him close and take the keys that hold his life chained to the wall. He could escape past the weakened priest, up the stairs and through the silent house. He could disappear as a shadow without a home once more.

He could.

He bends, instead, to take up the heavy jar and drink from it. He forces himself to drink slowly, despite his stomach aching and screaming to be filled and overfilled. Perhaps half the water is drunk before Hannibal sets it away, stumbles to sit against the cold floor once more.

"You have not sought out valerian root for your headaches," he murmurs. It is not a question.

Will tilts his head away from the light, eyes still closed, but no restfulness eases his features. There is always a crease across his brow, always fine lines drawn across his face where they should not be on one so young. He doesn’t smile this time, but a mirthless amusement dries his words.

“If you concern yourself with retribution against me for sharing water with you, perhaps consider how it would appear were I to take your recommendation. Were I to go seeking herbs and roots in strange places,” Will says. Touching his tongue to his lips, he shakes his head. “You said that it would make me sleep.”

“It may.”

“There is no respite for me in sleep,” Will tells him. Without elaborating further, his eyes open just a little, an unavoidable curiosity towards the doctor. “I would not know the plant, anyway. Were I so inclined.”

The doctor hums and carefully lays himself out on the cold stone floor. He is exhausted, prepared to take all manner of punishment if it means he will sleep. Even for an hour.

"Is it summer?" Hannibal asks, and Will wonders for a moment if he asks in jest. He has not been beneath the ground long enough to forget, surely. A beat of pause and the doctor continues. "It blooms with white, sometimes pink flowers, sweet and small. The ground root steeped in water and taken orally will sedate you to rest."

Will considers, hums a protest before he is once more interrupted. 

"You may feel no respite in sleep but your physical body aches because it needs it. It will continue to. It will grow worse until you rest, as mine will should you keep me awake a day, two, three more. And then it will expire. First the mind, then the stomach, then the bones."

A shiver tugs through Will at the words, and he hides his hands inside his sleeves, drawing them tighter around himself. Every discomfort seems suddenly visible in the doctor, muscles twitching, mouth thinned to a line. Will feels his spine jerk from the pain of laying on stone, his legs grow numb from the pressure of it, his fingers curl from the scraping iron around his wrists. Just as clearly, he imagines the man before he was brought here. Tall, when he is not bent upon himself. An easy smile that lightens dark eyes, when he is not made pale with hunger and caked in blood.

Elegant.

Regal.

Handsome.

Will shakes his head, and swallowing back bile, forces his gaze away.

“You do not see science and faith in conflict,” Will says. “Should they not, then, work the same? Should prayer not be as effective as plants? More so, for the force of God behind it. And if God wishes for me to suffer,” Will explains, voice softening into the quiet of confession, “then what herb is strong enough to cause it to cease?”

The doctor considers the question and finds himself smiling, despite the exhaustion and filth and cold. It is good to have company, to talk to another living human being. He parts his lips with his tongue and draws a breath.

"Perhaps see the two as working in tandem. Faith healing the soul, and science the body. If you do not care for the physical form God has granted you, are you not being negligent? Are you not destroying a divine vessel of His creation? Should God have chosen you as His martyr, as you suppose He has, then anything a weak human form seeks for healing would be ineffective. Surely, then, there is no harm to seek? If it is God's will that you suffer, regardless of my knowledge or your strong will, you will suffer."

The doctor groans softly, biting his lip as he turns to his side, hands up over his hip to remain tethered. His eyes are closed, breathing even, and he jerks from the rest with a small animal sound of pain.

"If the root works, then perhaps the burden you have put upon yourself is a harsher punishment than God ever intended."

Will draws a breath to argue but allows the words to die against his lips. A part of him snarls, deep in his belly, at the lack of faith in such an action. The Holy must often suffer by God’s divine order, and to even consider an alternative feels like doubting His intent. But the greater truth he knows now is what the doctor spoke moments before - if he does not act, he will break.

And if God wishes for Will to break, he will break.

“Why?” Will asks, as again a shot of pain ratchets up his spine when Hannibal grimaces at his own discomfort. “Why would you help me?”

Hannibal’s breathing has eased down to rest now, slow and steady, in and out, and reluctantly, despite wanting to let Hannibal rest, Will raises his voice to ask him again.

Hannibal swallows, body trembling with exhaustion and cold, eyes barely open. This is the second, perhaps third day of no sleep. He knows two more and he will expire. A body cannot handle more, it is not built to withstand this torment.

"Because you treat yourself as a prisoner, here, and torture yourself when you should not. Heed my advice or not, little priest, it is in my nature to care and give it."

He would be right to poison Will. He would be justified in his own defense to send him self-assured of his own righteousness in seeking relief and scurrying after it, only to consume the root and die for his lack of faith. Will recalls verses of vengeance that would seemingly justify it, and yet he knows, somehow he knows, that the doctor does not intend him harm.

Will is meant to stay the night through, and ensure the man does not sleep. It will weaken him for the following day’s torments, loosen his tongue to spill names though he swears he will not. They always swear they will not. They always do.

Will stands, a hand against the wall to steady himself.

“I will return,” he says, “to wake you and take the ewer from your cell. And should your words prove true -”

He stops himself from finishing the sentence, as he had intended. He knows not with whom he deals, truly, nor with what forces yet unseen. He will not give them his debt so freely as that. Will’s fingers curl against the frame of the door as he turns to go.

“What plant, doctor, would ease your wrist’s seeping?”

Hannibal turns to watch him, gratitude laid clear across exhausted features. He brings his hand up to look at it, wincing just slightly as the cuff rubs. The abrasion is what hurts the most, the constant reminder of pain upon pain.

"Cloves," he says quietly, dropping his hand to his chest. "Oregano. Merely to keep the wound from festering."

Those both, Will knows, are harmless - no poison can be fashioned from them of which Will is aware. He inclines his head and steps back. Before he allows the door to close, he marks the sign of the cross over the prone figure before him, and brings his crucifix to his lips to beseech God for whatever mercy he might show them both.

And then he goes, pushing the waste bucket back inside the door, and latching it soundly shut behind.

He should fear the darkness more than day, but as he makes his way up the twisted stairs and to the door out of the witch-house, Will feels nothing more than a curious relief at being shrouded so. There are no lights glimmering from within, casting revelation upon the ground. The air is clean and crisp, and Will breathes his fill of it before his feet carry him silently across the soil.

Will prays as he goes, strings of litanies petitioning God to keep the innocent safe and bring justice to the guilty. He prays for others, first, nameless and manifold. He prays for the Church and its agents. He prays only for himself, last, as edging near the sylvan copse that surrounds the witch-house and spreads black up the mountainside, he seeks out his own small salvation in the plant the doctor prescribed.

It is perhaps a sign in itself that Will finds it quickly, growing along the base of a great oak. Little white flowers spread like hands begging sanctification, with a thick root that he dusts free from dark earth as he tugs it loose. The priest tucks it into the folds of his robes, lifting his gaze to the sky overhead. The moon casts the world in silver, pale and luminous.

Will lingers outside, a moment more. His body shakes beyond his control, as if jerked to trembling by some unnatural force. Exhaustion and desperation are his demons now, and he hopes nothing more. Will wonders if he has always been so weak that even such a small walk has rendered him close to collapse. Head against the stone wall, Will closes his eyes and prays nocturnes, with no one to hear it but himself and God.

The cloves and oregano he finds in the kitchens, quiet as the rest of the house this late at night. They need not keep guards or acolytes on duty after hours. No one would dare break into the house. No one is capable of breaking out. Will sifts through the spices with careful fingers, setting them aside, and begins to cut small the root before grinding it fine. He hums low hymns as he works, songs he has not heard in far too long. He stopped hosting mass in the town’s chapel when he was anointed for this work. He stopped attending there when the mere concept of being asked to pray for others seemed obscene. Only at the witch-house, now, does he hold services, to empty benches and silent walls.

The kyrie carries deep vibrations through his chest. He sets a kettle to boil and before it can bubble, plucks it free from the little fire to pour into his cup across the ground root. Softly, Will intones for healing, if he is worthy of it. He intones for safety, if the doctor means harm against him. And he intones for mercy, if death should come for him now.

By the time all is done, the sky has bruised from black to violet. Hours spent in contemplation. Hours for the doctor to rest, and perhaps consider the words that Will spoke to him. He takes a butt of bread, a hunk of hard cheese, a strip of dried venison. These he carries with the handful of cloves and oregano that heat fragrant in his palms. What compels him to do this? What moves him now to offer succor to one who has admitted seeking outside God’s grace to administer to others? What gives Hannibal’s words greater weight than those of his accuser?

_Estote ergo misericordes sicut et Pater vester misericors est._

Will breathes the words to hush the doctor as he jerks awake again. Wary, Will watches the man as he comes close, and near enough that Hannibal can reach them, Will sets food and herbs against the stone. He takes up the ewer, nearly empty now, and rights himself once more. Hannibal looks on him and shakes his head, but as he draws his breath to speak, Will raises a hand for quiet and repeats the words softly as he goes:

_Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful._


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I have tried,” he says. “I have tried to show mercy to you. I have tried to be kind. I listened to you and what you have done -” A laugh cracks from somewhere far within. “It is sorcery. You have left me no doubt of that.”_
> 
> _“Your kindness and mercy have and will not be forgotten,” Hannibal tells him softly, not raising his voice as Will is, trying to soothe him down to his gentleness once more. “What have I done to upset you?”_
> 
> _Will’s laugh cuts sharper, salt in an open wound._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by our beloved [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/)!

The tea is bitter and Will’s heart races once more with the possibility of poison. He drinks it down regardless, trusting in God to be merciful should he never wake up. For his night's work, he is given the day to rest. He washes his face with cool water, hangs up his clothes and kneels before the cross above his bed to pray.

By the time his head is against the flat, cool pillow, his eyes are rolling closed, body heavy and trembling with the need for rest. He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he does remember the relief of respite finally, finally gracing him.

He wakes to cool hands and warm breath, and beyond the window the world is dark again. Will fusses, like a child seeking just moments more of sleep, and he turns to his back. The hands spread rough fingers over his throat and pull him to shivering. Will brings his own hands up to touch his skin and finds the fingers lace with his own and pull his hands away.

The weight that bears down on his chest is not the smothering suffocation to which he accustomed, crushing and cruel. There is warmth to this, not enough pressure to steal his breath. The figure holds himself just above Will’s body, enough weight to reassure, not enough to trap. Will reaches, and arches upward when his hands are caught and pinned above his head and his head is turned aside by the mouth against his ear.

“Little priest.”

Will’s spine coils upward, tugged towards the source of the purring words and rolling consonants. He shakes his head but stills when his smooth cheek brushes against unshaven skin, coarse and prickly. As if beneath a sudden, cool rain, Will’s skin draws tighter, goosebumps riveting his flesh, nipples pebbling stiff, lower still past his taut belly. Between his legs, he stiffens, the cord of his very being pulled taut.

He wants to speak of sin, but the only sound that forms is a rippling whimper from parted lips when Will turns his mouth against the doctor’s cheek. He wants to plead for mercy, his very soul at stake, but instead he closes a clumsy kiss against the man’s jaw. The only words that he can find is a prayer, as their fingers lace together and Hannibal’s broad palms enclose his own.

_Anima Christi, sanctifica me._

Will’s legs draw up trembling around Hannibal’s hips.

_Corpus Christi, salva me._

He digs his heels into the bed to push the length of his body upward and feel himself pinned.

_Sanguis Christi, inebria me._

It feels like salvation, heart beating alive as it has not in a long time, body responsive and singing its pleasure as the doctor's heavy body presses Will’s down further to the mattress beneath. He realizes that he is bare, his skin vulnerable to the doctor's eyes and fingers and lips, and Will can do little more but moan softly and shiver.

This should stop. This must cease. This is sin and sacrilege and damnation. Will parts his lips to beg, for more, to stop, to God, to the man above him. He feels a palm against his thigh, slowly stroking, teasing up closer to the hardness between his legs. Will whimpers, panic and desire cooling his blood and pulling a fever to his skin. He turns his head and feels warm lips brush his own and Will's entire body shudders, sparks behind his eyes and fire in his bones.

His back arches. 

His toes curl.

And then the weight is gone, the heat and comfort of another body, gone, and Will's eyes see only the ceiling of his little room.

He can do no more than force himself to breathe again, jagged gasps cutting free. Each rough spasm tightens his heart like a fist. His nightgown sticks to him, growing chill. He is wet between his legs, and suddenly against his cheeks as well, twin releases hot with guilt and shame.

“Why?” He asks aloud, palms pressed to his eyes hard enough that it hurts. Never has Will asked for this, not when he was little and looked at other boys the way they looked at girls. Never has Will wanted this, not when he sought out refuge in the God who no longer seems to hear his desperation. He hears the echo of the doctor’s words to him - _martyr_ \- and wonders if they have all felt as alone as he does, longing for the love of a God who has chosen them for sanctification only through suffering.

Will bares himself, wadding up the thin linen shift and burying it in his things to be laundered. On second thought, he drags it back out again and scrubs it soaking in the washbasin beneath his window. Evening has come, and Will’s face grows hot with the fear that he made sounds in his sleep - that he was overheard, perhaps, by any number of the acolytes who tend the priests within the witch-house. He hangs his gown to dry and washes himself down next, desperate prayers spilling from his lips as he rinses away the sin sticky on his thighs.

It is sorcery. There is no other explanation for why that man, accused already of seducing others to Satan, would appear to him in that way. Something in the root he recommended, a weakness in Will’s corporeal form that allowed Hannibal entry to his thoughts.

Will dresses quickly, jerking his cassock down over his head. He forgets his shoes in his fury, and does not go back for them. Nearly bowling over a kitchen servant in the process, Will barrels down the stairs, and meets the eyes of a guard, brows lifted.

“Go upstairs and shut the door. Do not let anyone down,” Will tells him.

“Are you not taking evening prayer -”

“ _Now_.”

The man blinks, moves to obey. It is rare that Will raises his voice at all, rare that he takes command as Mason so enjoys doing instead. But he, as Mason, has authority to command, authority to move as and how he sees fit. Alone, Will continues towards the cell he seeks, towards the man within it.

He does not look through the barred window, he seeks with the keys that tremble in his hands as he tries to fit the right one into the lock. Within, the doctor sits with his back against the wall, head tilted up and eyes closed. He jerks in panic when the door slams open, shifting his hand out of sight where there is a compress of herbs against it, and turns his eyes to the priest that has come to seek him.

“Good evening,” he says.

Will is fearless, suddenly, driven forward towards the man by a righteous anger. He holds his hand out, the gentleness scourged from his young face.

“Give it to me.”

The doctor presses his tongue between his lips, brow furrowed.

“The poultice,” Will snarls, teeth gritted. “Now.”

Made from a strip of his own bare clothing, the herbs packed tight within, Hannibal leans forward enough to deposit the compress into Will’s hand. The priest grips it tight, and with a glance to the door, lowers his voice.

“I have tried,” he says. “I have tried to show mercy to you. I have tried to be kind. I listened to you and what you have done -” A laugh cracks from somewhere far within. “It is sorcery. You have left me no doubt of that.”

Hannibal blinks, brows furrowed not in anger, not in gloating, but in genuine confusion. He regards Will and then behind him, to see if, perhaps, this is some kind of test to get him to confess. But there is no one there, not even a guard to protect the priest should Hannibal suddenly become violent towards him. Dark eyes return to blue and the doctor lifts his hands, gentle, before pushing himself to stand. He does not move to loom over Will, he does nothing more than lean against the wall and regard the man eye to eye.

“Your kindness and mercy have and will not be forgotten,” Hannibal tells him softly, not raising his voice as Will is, trying to soothe him down to his gentleness once more. “What have I done to upset you?”

Will’s laugh cuts sharper, salt in an open wound.

“As if you don’t know,” he exclaims, before forcing his voice to quiet again. “You wish for me to humiliate myself further? Or are you - are you only casting seeds of doubt, as if I’d imagined it all? You send your likeness to me, in the middle of the night -”

Hannibal tilts his head.

“A familiar with strength apparent enough to pass into a holy place, forcing me to sin,” Will accuses him, stepping close, close enough now that Hannibal could readily grasp him, and still the little priest stands furious before him. “Seduction, as Satan has turned so many. An incubus sent to break my vows of celibacy.”

The doctor regards the anger, sees beneath it to the pain that pulses in the priest’s heart. Guilt there, anguish, a spark of hope that he is trying to stifle with every cruel word and harsh breath. Hannibal watches, he listens as the young man berates him, calls him a worshipper of Satan and a monster, calls him all manner of things.

He can see that the bags beneath Will’s eyes have eased lighter.

He has slept, if a little.

And in his sleep, he has dreamed.

Hannibal feels a strange wave of cool sadness press to his skin. He dreamed, and he had lived there, a sanctuary for as long as Will had allowed it for himself before his mind had pushed him, instead, into guilt. He wonders if perhaps Will has never experienced this with another, with himself, in a way that he would know what it means. He wishes, suddenly, so much, that he could help, though he doubts his words would be heard.

“I do not corrupt,” Hannibal says quietly, when Will steps back to catch his breath, blink away the brightness in his eyes. “I have taken a vow, just as you, to do no harm, and I have not. Just as you have not broken yours.”

“You _lie_ ,” Will whispers, his words curling to a hiss between his teeth and his hands fisting at his sides. He forces his fingers to spread but tension snaps them closed again, empty air between, grasping at ghosts. “You justify and you twist and you bend and you _lie_. The evidence was on me, forced - _forced_ from my body.”

He knows, when he brings his gaze to lock with the doctor.

He knows, because he always knows.

Innocence from guilt.

Truth from lies.

And the part of him splintering deep inside breaks.

“I didn’t,” Will says, as his accusations become a plea. “I didn’t do this to myself. I saw you, there, and -”

“You saw?” Hannibal asks gently. Will shakes his head, nods it, steps back and presses his hands against his eyes.

“I saw you,” he whispers. “I saw your familiar, your incubus above me. Touching, and holding and -”

“Do you dream?” Comes the next question, soft-spoken and kind, almost too kind, and Will can barely stand it.

“I did not dream this.”

Hannibal raises his hands once more, not moving to touch Will, not moving to do anything but gently extend them, palms up, to show Will how he is still bound, still shackled in this place he has not left since he had been thrown here.

“I did not come to you,” Hannibal says. “I did not corrupt you. Nothing corrupted you. Your body responded to a pleasure stimulus, perhaps brought on by the sleep it has so long craved, perhaps by other thoughts, but this is not uncommon, medically. It is a natural process of growth.”

Will shakes his head, face flushed ruddy with embarrassment, laid thick across the guilt that snarls his belly and the shame that twists his heart. He does not want to believe the man. He has no choice but to believe him, when all Hannibal has spoken to him has been truth, incomprehensible.

“It is sin,” Will says. “It is not what God intends. It - it _wastes_. It is a selfish act, lustful and worldly. And made worse by -”

He wishes, suddenly, for the headache to return and rattle his bones to distraction. Its absence is as much a sign as the little pull he feels low in his belly when he thinks of his wrongdoing.

The dream.

Hannibal.

“There is nothing natural about that pleasure,” Will breathes.

Hannibal’s brows furrow but for a moment he says nothing. He lowers his hands and sets them behind himself, against the cold stone.

“There is nothing unnatural about it,” he tries. “Had God created us to not feel it, we would not. Consider, little priest, that He would not lead you into such temptation. Your God is not cruel.”

He wonders how terrifying it must be for Will to not know how this feels, to now know that pleasure like this is natural, normal, should be celebrated and enjoyed. He wonders how many nights he had woken with mess between his legs and wondered what was wrong with him, how many times he had prayed for forgiveness for something that did not need to be forgiven.

“In our growth to maturity in our bodies, we experience such things. It is as natural as the growth of your hair and your nails, as natural as the elongating of your bones that straightens your spine to be taller. These emissions are not a sign of disease or sin. It is your body developing as it should.”

He bites his lip softly and lets it go, looking past Will again, briefly, to the door. “Have you experienced this before?”

“Have I sinned before,” Will clarifies, “like this.”

Acquiescing to this much at least, Hannibal inclines his head. Will should go. He should turn and leave, relinquish this one to Mason and let him fade to memory, to whatever God holds for him in judgment, to rough words whispered warmly against his ear -

Will swallows, hard enough that his throat clicks. And he nods, once.

It’s enough.

“It is not meant for me,” Will tries to explain, unsteady steps carrying him to the stool left against the wall from before. “Not like this. It is meant for man and woman, who have undertaken the sacrament of marriage and seek the blessing of children.” He drops to sit, gaze unfocused, distant, turned not towards the heavens but towards the earth. “It is meant for husband, and wife.”

“A human body is created with a multitude of purposes in mind,” Hannibal says. “In another life, you may have had a wife, may have had children from your union. Your body would have been the same. In this life, you have chosen a noble path, one of faith and mercy. And still your body is made the same.”

The doctor watches the priest where he sits, and slowly lowers himself to the cold floor once more, back against the wall and knees drawn up.

“I will not tell you to celebrate this, you will not. I will not tell you that it will pass, because it will not,” Hannibal murmurs. “But it is wrong to condemn pleasure of the body. It is unnatural to. Our bodies were made to experience, to sense and feel and understand everything God has put on this earth for us to live alongside. Our souls are in these bodies for so short a time.” He doesn’t finish, turning his eyes away, towards the corner he had stood in not hours before, when Will had brought him water.

The thought occurs to Will that the man’s words are heresy, itself a crime as grievous as the sorcery of which he is accused. But the consideration comes and goes, and Will does not clutch to it. Who in this room between them has not sinned? And who more recently?

“Pity, then, we who will not know the length and breadth of them.”

Hannibal lifts his eyes to the priest, who sits against the wall and seems somehow smaller. Nineteen years, twenty perhaps. Drawn inside his cassock as if it were armor meant to protect him from the world, but instead weighing heavy as iron against his shoulders. Dark hair curls twisted against pale cheeks, reddened still in his humiliation. Will watches his hands as he speaks, fingertips fanning inside his sleeves.

“It is why I sought the Church,” Will admits, brows drawing in. “I made confession when first my thoughts turned lustful. When first I looked on -” A breath of laughter, joyless, cuts his words. “- on other boys, instead of girls. And I knew. And after making my penance, I told my father that same day that I wanted to join the priesthood.”

A smile tugs at him, without strength enough to come to fruition.

“Not what fathers wish to hear from their firstborn sons. He asked, didn’t I wish to marry, to carry on the name and - and I never could tell him why. There was peace in it, to be cloistered in study. Closer to God. Further from temptation.”

Hannibal listens to the young boy speak as he supposes he has not in years, perhaps ever, to another. He listens to his confession and his sadness behind it, he listens to the lingering tug of loss that this life has wrought in him. He wishes that there was a way for him to understand that he is not condemned, that of all the people, in this house, in the Church, in the town, he is perhaps the most pure, the most gentle and kind and just.

“You are losing your faith,” the doctor says softly, and it is far from an accusation. A commiseration perhaps, a mutual understanding. He had lost his own, years ago, had put his faith and love into medicine and the effort needed to help those in need. God had failed him in saving lives, omnipresent as He is, He could not be there to save families and children, Hannibal’s own among them, from plague or fever or pain. So he took it upon himself to help.

Will does not admit to it so bluntly. His wan and fleeting smile says enough.

“What I sought,” he finally says, “was a daydream. A child’s innocence shrouding the truth that could not possibly have been known. What I sought was peace. Quiet. Growing nearer to God in my attempts to understand myself, and learning from others who might have sought me in turn to guide them.” He brings a hand to his face to smother the laugh that erupts in a single note, before he drops it back to his lap. “As if by showing others the path to forgiveness, I might stay on it myself.”

He lets his eyes settle on the dim ceiling, his head back against the wall.

“What I sought is not what I have found. I offer Mass to an empty chapel, and cause fear and pain in those who come near me. I am told,” he intones, softly, so soft that Hannibal can hardly hear what Will knows to be heretical, “that I am an instrument of God’s justice. His righteous anger incarnate against those who defy Him. I am told this by men of power and esteem. Men who are closer to God than I will ever be. And who am I to doubt them, if even at rest, my vows are broken?”

“Faith is in the heart,” Hannibal says. “If the heart doubts what mortal men say, it is not your failing to understand it. Faith belongs to God. Those who claim closeness are not always honest. Power corrupts, even faith.”

The doctor looks between Will and the door, listens to the quiet evening sounds within the cells around them, few people, here, but enough that Hannibal hears them crying, hears their pain and fear. Some are children, it tears his heart to imagine what monster had brought them to this awful place.

“You did not break your vows,” Hannibal assures him again. “You did nothing but take rest. The root did not poison you, and your headache has eased. It was by mortal suggestion but God’s will. Otherwise He would not have allowed this, no?” A smile, then, just enough to hear. Hannibal swallows, his throat dry, his body aching still, from lack of sleep, despite Will’s mercy in granting him several hours before the dawn. “You are a good man,” he murmurs.

This, finally, is enough that Will can bear no more. He drags himself to standing and buries his hands in his sleeves, shrinking into the warmth and safety of his cassock, as if it might protect him from the words that Hannibal claims as truth. To call Will good, let alone in the eyes of God, is a greater heresy than any other he has spoken.

“You have comforted me,” Will allows, hand against the door, “with the reminder that all too soon our souls will be stripped from these bodies. I think that my time will be shorter than yours, all told. It will be a triumph for them to have unearthed a heretic priest from their midst.”

There is a curious expression then, apologetic, but Will smiles through it, small and bright and genuine.

“I suppose it does not matter then if I allow you rest or food, does it?”

Hannibal lifts his eyes and just keeps them on the young man before sitting back farther against the wall.

“It matters in the eyes of the only one who judges,” he notes. “And to the man whom you have shown mercy.” He watches Will long enough for the young priest to avert his eyes, and then Hannibal averts his own. “You will have my gratitude for it, always. It is a man’s actions that define him. His choices that make him.”

Will realizes, only then, that in his pocket he holds the doctor’s makeshift poultice. It is trouble for them both if it is discovered. He strokes a thumb across the soft, stained linen that still smells sweetly of clove, and tosses it into Hannibal’s hands.

It is trust that joins them, in keeping secret their passing mercies.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He has been interrogated once, before Will had come to him the first time. He had been near-drowned, again and again, until his nose bled and his eyes were red. He had not spoken then.
> 
> He has nothing to say that this inquisitor wants to hear. He will not give names. He has none to give.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by our beloved [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/) \- we love you so!

At lauds, the little priest stirred him only with a hymn, so gentle and sweet of voice that Hannibal hardly stirred from the sleep that the younger man has afforded him.

At prime, an offering was brought to him of honeyed cake, studded through with dried fruit, and the little priest let him drink his fill from the ewer.

And at terce, when Hannibal knows the sun to have risen, he expects the arrival of the priest who has for an unknown and unlikely number of days been his only consort and company. He lifts his gaze to the door as it latches open.

A gaze as warm as iron meets his own, a pale shock of blonde hair in place of warm russet curls.

“Bring him,” drawls the inquisitor, as two guards step past. “I’d suggest staying away from his _mouth_. Whether by _coercion_ or _savagery_ , you’d best not venture letting him _sink_ his _teeth_ in.”

Hannibal swallows, immediately sets his jaw. The panic that had so easily been forgotten with Will so near so often rises like a cold tide against Hannibal’s chest and he holds his breath for fear if he releases it he will shatter. He goes without struggle, held beneath his arms and walked from the cell. He does not lift his eyes to the inquisitor as he passes, though he can feel the man watching him closely.

He has been interrogated once, before Will had come to him the first time. He had been near-drowned, again and again, until his nose bled and his eyes were red. He had not spoken then.

He has nothing to say that this inquisitor wants to hear. He will not give names. He has none to give.

Hannibal is led to a new chamber, larger than his room, though hardly better appointed. There is a window, however, letting in the cool morning light, fresher air than Hannibal has tasted in weeks. From the ceiling, in the center, hangs a pulley, thick rope attached and swaying to an unheard rhythm. Hannibal presses his lips together and wonders if he is about to hang.

He wishes he still remembered his prayers. He wishes that Will would be here to pray over him, should this be the end. 

Hannibal is shoved to the center of the room, and for an instant contemplates escape. The window is high enough that he can see the leaves of the trees outside, the guards spaced between inquisitor and convicted. He could move, quickly, had he the strength. The gifts given to him by the little priest have kept him steady on his feet, but his muscles have flagged, kept in darkness unmoving for so long.

Still.

Still.

He clenches his hands into fists just as the door opens again and Will enters, his dark-eyed gaze no longer ringed with sleepless circles but no less weighted by burdens known only to they. He does not meet Hannibal’s gaze as he enters, a resolute decision, deliberate.

Hannibal’s wrists are snared, and his lip curls as his arms are bent behind him.

“You _are_ a _patient_ man,” the inquisitor admits with a laugh. “I _admire_ that. One’s _devotion_ to their course, however _futile_ it may be. _Patience_ is a _virtue_ ,” Mason intones, circling to watch the leather straps loop tight around Hannibal’s wrists. He lifts his eyes with a bright blink, and a blinding smile. “I have patience in _spades_.”

Hannibal swallows carefully and keeps his eyes on the man before him, staring him down as one should a predator. Never run. Never show weakness, never show fear.

“Then you are quite the virtuous man,” he offers, and finds that a sharp laugh is his only answer. Mason steps back with the force of it, the power it takes to push such joviality into something so false. Hannibal’s skin crawls listening to him.

“Do you know, I _am_?” Mason says, eyes on the doctor as the guards bring a knife to the front of his loose undershirt to cut it away from him, exposing his chest, barely bruised and furred with thick hair. “I was _chosen_ to study in _Rome_ as a child. _Rome_. You cannot even _imagine_ the sanctity of such a place, can you, heretic? You would _burn_ setting your foot to the holy soil.”

Hannibal says nothing, just shivers as his clothes and only cover are ripped from him and tossed aside. His shirt first, his pants next.

“My _virtue_ is what leads me to be God’s _greatest_ ally, His _strongest_ voice here. And I do _not_ take such a position lightly. No. I simply _couldn’t_. With so many _heretics_ and _witches_ the town is _filthy_. If not for my _virtue_ , it would be Sodom. It would be Gomorrah. Because of men like you.”

Will’s gaze remains trained to the floor as the doctor is bared. Hannibal can see his hands clasped so tight his fingers are white, can see the scant silent movement of his lips. One hope, at least, has come to fruition - that the little priest will pray for him, and administer his final rites if they are to be his last.

Hannibal’s attention darts back to the movement of Mason’s hand, an instant of reaction curling his lip as his wrists are bound together behind his back. Overhead, the strap is attached to a wheel, and then to a crank upon the wall.

“ _Names_ ,” the inquisitor purrs. “I wish to speak with those who have _sought_ your _services_. Just a few _questions_ to ask, to _appraise_ their experiences under your _care_.”

Hannibal sets his jaw to silence, and with a put-upon sigh, the inquisitor lifts his hand.

“Wait,” Will tells him, stepping forward. “A moment, before you begin.”

The blonde squints towards his fellow priest, but Will speaks again before Mason can.

“Another loop. Around his elbows, here,” says Will. He keeps his attention focused only on the strap, not on the man beneath. He sees peripherally the doctor’s shoulders bent back, his muscles twitching. A swallow jerks in Will’s throat and he takes the strap from the guards to loop it once more, higher, around Hannibal’s arms.

“ _Why_?” Mason asks, stopping Will’s hands with a swift grip. “That isn’t how _I_ was trained, that isn’t how _we_ -”

“To prolong,” says Will. “He cannot speak if he is not conscious.”

Silence, then, from Mason, from the doctor, before the blonde snorts and steps back with an exaggerated splaying of his fingers, a deliberate lifting of his hands. Will carefully works the extra loop around Hannibal’s arms. It will not be enough to take away the pain, but it will be enough to keep his shoulders from dislocating.

Hannibal says nothing, does nothing. Any show of familiarity here would be death upon them both - he will not do that to the man who has been only merciful to him. When Will steps away, he feels it like a cold rush against his skin. He feels, for a moment, genuine fear, panic, a human response to the promise of undeserved pain, a human response to someone who so explicitly takes pleasure in causing it.

“ _Names_ ,” Mason repeats. Hannibal just hangs his head, eyes closing, hands clasping together as he prepares to hold himself up. Another sigh, another gesture, and this time Will does not step in, and motion by motion, twist by twist, Hannibal’s arms raise behind him, forcing him forward, forcing his shoulders tense.

His toes remain pressed to the floor, not yet taken entirely from his feet. His spine bends unnaturally, shoulders driven together and arms bent behind. Will looks away and does not turn back, the choked snarl of agony enough without having to see the man stretched strappado.

“You see?” Mason laughs, hands clapping together in childish delight. “ _My_ patience for _this_ is _extraordinary_. Why, I could stand here all day without _tiring_.”

Sweat beads across Hannibal’s brow and drips stinging into his eyes. He does not duck his head forward - it would only make the pressure worse.

“But if you don’t _wish_ to tell me with _whom_ you’ve been spending your time, _maybe_ we could discuss instead _what_ you’ve been doing. There are _accusations_ -”

“Taken like this?” Hannibal spits, and a motion from Mason brings him to the tips of his toes, scrabbling frantic against the stone.

“ - _accusations_ ,” continues the inquisitor, “that _you’ve_ been dealing in _Devilry_. Using _plants_ and _animals_ and maybe even worse things than _that_.” Mason prowls closer, and sets a slender finger against Hannibal’s head to bend it forward, pulling his shoulders tighter until he trembles. “Tell me. When did you _first_ let Satan _sodomize_ you for that knowledge?”

Will reaches with a shaking hand to the windowsill and sits within it. Forehead to the glass, he does not look to the doctor, the priest. His breath spills grey across the pane as he silently prays.

The doctor says nothing, breathing uneven and hands clasped together behind his back. The skin in white around the bindings, pinking at his shoulders. The pain is wrought clear on his face but still he does not answer. Not even when, with a sigh, Mason gestures once more and Hannibal's toes leave the ground, suspending him entirely.

Hannibal cries out, just once, and leaves his lips parted to take in breaths that he tries to keep slow, that he tries to steady despite the agony shooting through his nerves.

"Doctor, this might be a _very_ long evening if we don't _develop_ a _rapport_ ," Mason says, turning on his heel to begin pacing, the motion almost whimsical, almost childish in its impatience. "I will start taking _silences_ as _admissions_ and suddenly you will be accused of all _sorts_ of things you claim to _never_ have done."

Hannibal's eyes remain closed, every muscle tense as he tries to keep himself from moving, tries to hold himself in the agonizing bend that makes his muscles scream. Mason considers him, hums, and without a word sets elegant fingers to Hannibal's side and pushes him enough to swing him, a gentle sway that pulls a groan from the man, more sweat to his brow.

" _Did_ you?" Mason asks him. "Let _Satan sodomize_ you?"

"No," Hannibal pants softly.

"Did you _thirst_ for _knowledge_ like Eve hungered for the Apple? Men are not _made_ to know His _plans_ , to know what He _knows_. In your _blatant_ disregard for the _sanctity_ of _Holy healing_ you _renounce_ God."

"No."

“No,” Mason purrs. “ _No_ , of _course_ not. He wouldn’t let you confess anyway, would he? From someone like _you_ , a _no_ is as good as a _yes_.”

He lifts his hands and lets them drop to his side, and from the corners of his eyes Will sees the movement. He knows the whine of leather that follows, the wet crunch that follows as bone separates from bone and arms grow too long. Will is up in an instant and when Mason turns to shove Hannibal to swinging, the doctor scarcely moves before bumping into the little priest beside him.

One hand comes to rest against Hannibal’s ribs, heaving. The other settles to his belly, the hair across it stuck to sweat-damp skin. Mason blinks at Will in surprise, and Will feigns a smile.

“My apologies,” Will murmurs, and only the pain stops Hannibal from responding that he forgives him.

Mason dips his head graciously towards Will in thanks for his apology, and lifts his eyes first, through a bramble of blonde hair, uncoiling slowly upward again to face Hannibal.

“Surely _God_ did not gift _you_ , heretic, with the _gift_ of healing that only _He_ provides. Surely _Our Father_ who _art_ in _Heaven_ ,” Mason grins, teeth bared, “did not _give_ you this knowledge. How, then, _did_ you come upon it?”

It is futile to argue, futile to try to reason. Hannibal's entire body trembles in agony, he can barely breathe, and all he can think of, with any clarity, is the feeling of Will’s fingers against his skin, the balm they brought even with something so gentle.

"Years of study," Hannibal whispers, voice breaking as his breath hitches and he tries to keep himself conscious. Sparks behind his eyes, sweat dripping to the floor before him. A mercy, too, as it mingles with his tears and hides them.

"Under _whom_?" Mason asks, exasperated. "Knowledge and education is a _granted_ permission. _Sanctioned_ by the _Church_." Mason grasps a hand in Hannibal’s sweat-damp hair and lifts his head, the pressure against Hannibal’s arms increasing to the point of blinding white behind his eyes.

He will break.

The human body can only take so much.

"Inquisitor."

Mason makes a long, drawn out sound of frustration and turns towards the door.

" _What_?"

"Someone has come to the door."

" _Am_ I a _butler_?"

"No, sir, you misunderstand." The acolyte is pale, keeping his eyes averted from the center of the room where the doctor hangs limp and shaking. "Someone has come to the door to confess themselves a witch."

Mason’s head cants to the side and he deliberately drops Hannibal's head with a shove towards the ground.

" _Themselves_?"

"Yes, sir."

Mason looks to Will, over the prone form of the man between them, catches light blue eyes with his own and Will knows, he _knows_ the sick excitement that he sees flood through Mason. He tries to calm his heart.

"Go," he offers. "I can finish."

The inquisitor hesitates for only a moment. Even animals know when something is amiss, a storm in the distance before any human ears hear thunder. But the feeling seems to leave just as quickly as it appeared, and Mason only narrows his gaze at the confessor before he turns to go.

“Do not _release_ him until he’s given us _names_ ,” Mason calls across his shoulder, black robes billowing in his hurry. “You are a _confessor_. _Earn_ the title.”

Will marks the sign of the cross over himself as the other priest departs, and Will nods towards the guards.

“Go with him, but do not let him know I sent you,” he murmurs. “He would do it alone had he his way of things. This one presents far less danger, bound and trussed, than a self-professed servant of Satan.”

With bowed heads, the two guards go. Will follows with slow steps towards the door and rests his hand against it, listening as the footsteps fade. He waits, heart tripping fast and unsteady across cobblestone ribs, until he hears Mason’s gleeful shout below.

Perhaps this time, they have found a witch. What else but madness would drive someone to throw themselves at the doorstep of this place?

Will slips the door quietly shut, and all at once he moves. Jerking loose the wheel from where it was locked, he leans his weight back against the crank to slow its turning and not let the doctor drop. Only until the balls of his feet touch trembling to the ground, only until the scarce easing of this weight tugs another cry from the man.

And quickly, rushing, Will goes to the man and reaches around him to pull the leather straps free.

A gasp, perhaps a word but inarticulate, mumbled and caught behind the sob that pulls forth from the doctor as Will works to free him. He leans, when he can, heavy against the little priest, and turns his head against him.

 _No_.

It is as clear as if he had spoken the words, and as Will’s fingers soothe taut muscle in hot, tormented shoulders, Hannibal begins to weep.

A man of his size, his weight - Will cannot think of anything but the pressure of his body pulling against itself, and the strength it must have taken to hold his arms from snapping. He lets Hannibal lean, staggering a little beneath him, and with quickening breaths pulls the strap finally free.

Hannibal’s arms drop and Will feels his muscles explode quivering, trembling as if the skin were flayed from flesh. The little priest tucks his arms beneath Hannibal to bear his weight for him, and when his own breathing is too shallow to give voice to words, he hums a wavering hymn.

Low.

And soft.

 _Kyrie eleison_.

God, have mercy.

Hannibal is dead weight against him, and carefully, gently, Will sets him to the floor where the man gratefully rests on his stomach. He continues to weep thick, seeping tears that pool against the cool stone beneath his face. He does not move his arms, he cannot. Fingers purple from the pressure, angry red marks at his skin where the leather had dug in. His shoulders are a galaxy of pain, red and purples and yellows already blooming.

Hannibal weeps and Will prays beside him.

Without thought for the doctor’s bareness, without thought for anything but stopping his tears and easing his pain, Will sets his hands against Hannibal’s shoulder blades and presses his palms in flat strokes. He does not know what else to do, never before has he even seen someone taken from the strappado before unconsciousness took them first. His thumbs press along the shivering muscles, but each slow slide of his hands rip another wracking sob through the man beneath.

Will swallows back his own tears. His grief has no place here, not beside this kind of suffering. He forces his voice to prayer, to hymn, past those into songs he has not thought of since his childhood. Anything, anything to lift this proud man from being brought so low.

Anything, anything that God might hear to quiet Hannibal’s heart.

The tears continue until they dry, Hannibal too exhausted to move himself, in too much pain to ask Will to stop. He seeks to help, and he does not harm, but the pain of being touched, even so softly, even so gently is immense.

At length, Hannibal lets his hand move, just enough to set fingertips to Will’s knee, the fabric of his cassock rough to Hannibal's fingers. He does little more than brush strokes against him, a seeking of comfort, a gratitude too huge to express in words. He touches long enough for Will to press a hand through his hair, a gentle carding, and then his lips part and Hannibal opens his eyes to look at him.

What can the little priest say, that the man does not know? That without a name, even one, he will find himself strapped again, if not subjected to far greater torments? That the priest himself will make one up rather than make himself ask that ugly question again, and risk whatever comes of it?

Will inhales sharply from the press of Hannibal’s hand against his knee, and shivers out a sigh as damp, sleek strands part soft beneath his fingers.

What can Will say, that would make amends for this? That if Hannibal is lucky, his body will give way before his mind? That the best either can hope for is that God is as generous in His love as both have hoped but never seen?

He bends low over Hannibal, mouth parted and breath warm where he dares to breath so near Hannibal’s ear.

“ _Cum transieris per aquas tecum ero_ ,” he whispers. “ _Et flumina non operient te. Cum ambulaveris in igne non conbureris et flamma non ardebit in te._ I will be with you.”

Whatever tears remain within Hannibal, squeeze from the corners of his eyes at the words, and he lets them close again. Somewhere, a God is merciful. Somewhere, in a life not lived, not now, they are both at peace, away from this cruelty and horror.

Hannibal's hand moves, a little further, he winces at the pain but does not stop until his fingers brush Will’s where they rest to balance him on the floor. He seeks, touch to touch, warmth and softness of another, tickling sensation over Will’s knuckles until gently Will withdraws his fingers and softly moves them to rest atop Hannibal's instead. Slow adjustments, as wary of being so close to another as of causing more pain, bring Will closer. He sits first on his heels, and then upon his hip, legs curling beside him, hidden beneath black wool. But no movement draws Will’s hand away from Hannibal’s own, uncertain fingers curling around hands that have healed, perhaps harmed, but have to Will’s knowledge done no wrong.

They are lucky, Will realizes, with a sudden awareness that shocks a desperate note of laughter from him. In some monstrous way, they are blessed, that in spite of this, because of it, they have found someone to understand. Were Will not here, Hannibal’s hands would be above his head, the bones of his shoulders jutting against his skin like wings. He would be raving, maddened by sleeplessness and starvation, pushed over by pain into a feral frenzy. The doctor would name names, then, real people and imagined, he would speak in tongues.

And were Hannibal not here, Will’s headaches would have worsened, and perhaps he would have given up altogether. There would be no reminder that others are capable of understanding. There would be no succor for his loneliness. The little flame inside him would have been snuffed, and given way to darkness.

They rest until Hannibal’s eyes begin to droop, until his heart beat eases to calm and when Will reaches for him he does not flinch. They do not speak, they do not have to. Will finds a robe, not clean but not filthy, rough and heavy and covers the doctor in it, taking away the torn rags that had been cut from him. He promises water, and the doctor nods. He promises care, and the doctor nods. He promises that he will be with him, for any other pain, for all other torture and he will not leave him, and the doctor nods. He knows. He reaches for Will’s hand and breathes against it softly when Will holds it near.

Will’s fingers curl trembling against Hannibal’s breath. His own stops, caught beneath the wild rising of his heart, tugged high into his throat enough to push only a small sound from the little priest. It is not a hurt sound, it is not a sound of fear. It is gentle, helpless, and Will feels a holy fire within him that he would gladly let consume every fragment of his mortal flesh for this.

Only this.

 _In scapulis suis obumbrabit tibi et sub alis eius sperabis_.

And gently assisting him with an arm around his waist, Will tells him only, “You have done enough.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I pray,” Will whispers, “it may serve as a sort of stigmata. Your wounds becoming mine. I can take them. I will. I will wear them.” He starts to lift his hands to rest on Hannibal’s knees, hovering for a moment before lowering them to his lap again. “Should that not prove effective -”_
> 
> _“It will not.”_
> 
> _“Should it not,” sighs Will, “then at least you do not suffer alone.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by our beloved [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/)!

Will brings Hannibal water, as he promised.

In blackest night and starkest silence, he looks away as the man washes clean his skin and drinks deeply from the ewer of sweet well water that Will ensures is full before the acolytes retire. There is a night when Will brings Hannibal tea, still steaming, and his heart moves as if raised by choir and grace to see the man smile as he breathes it in.

Will brings Hannibal food, as he promised.

Sweet cakes in the morning when he stirs the doctor to rising and begs that he look alive and exhausted all at once, as if sleep had not been his for days. It raises suspicions that one could stand it so long, and so Will begins to trade shifts with those who do keep Hannibal sleepless with swift kicks and shouts. After those nights, Will brings him food - his own, when guilt shrinks his stomach to unease.

Will brings Hannibal medicine, as he promised.

Fragrant leaves and potent roots, prepared as Hannibal asks of him in grateful whispers; the little priest knows them now, their uses and the ailments that they treat, and he finds that they are used as much for his own aches as the for the doctor’s.

But there are pains that even plants cannot cure.

Pains that are far from the physical, that wound the soul and wound the spirit. Will can see, day by day, the incredible strength that the doctor carries, can see how even that fades. Inch by inch, drop by drop. He does not want to think of what it means when it will end. He does not want to think of what will become of him when Hannibal can no longer hold strong, hold proud as he does.

It is selfish, it is unacceptable. Will finds his guilt cresting to stifling waves when he is not near the man to atone for them.

He drinks the valerian root nightly, now, not for his own health, he convinces himself, but so he is alert and awake and aware when he goes to see the doctor once more. He tends the herbs Hannibal seeks for most often in a small patch in the garden, behind the roses, where no one will think to look.

He tries.

And always, Hannibal is grateful to him, their fingertips brushing when Will brings him food or water or the leaves of little plants.

Will lingers sometimes, a heartbeat longer, just to feel himself made whole by so small a touch.

And always, Hannibal is paler than before, fading before Will’s eyes with stripes of scarlet cut cruel across his skin and bruises falling like shadow where there is no light.

Will lingers then too, as if through prayer alone he might see the doctor’s strength restored to the regal beauty that bleeds from him.

As if.

As if.

He stops listening to the words, warmed and low, when Hannibal tells him that his mercy will not be forgotten. It will, Will knows, it all will be when one day Hannibal does not rise by his own strength, when he is dragged, when he withers and fades and when Will spreads fingers across his mouth and feels no breath push back against them.

It will all end.

_Dies iræ, dies illa. Solvet sæclum in favilla._

The first strike jerks his breath from him, whipcord sharp until his lungs empty.

Will keeps his eyes closed as he repeats his prayer, as he takes another breath and swings the whip, cutting, back across his shoulder to paint another stripe across his spine. It does not deserve to be without marks for his work. It does not deserve to be clean, when Will’s thoughts and his hands are anything but.

He considers punishing himself for every day he has not, considers atoning all at once. But the third stripe pulls a whimper from him and Will prays for strength to even make ten. He lifts his eyes to the cross above his bed, whispers a prayer, whispers a forgiveness, whispers Hannibal’s name and seeks protection for him.

The fourth and fifth blur together in a harsh fire of pain. The sixth comes slower.

“Space them _out_ ,” Mason says, pacing the length of the room to stand before Hannibal again, eyes on the doctor’s tense expression, the agony there. “If you keep them so _close_ he will stop _feeling_ them, and _then_ what’s the point? Again.”

The whip paints another lash against Hannibal’s back and he parts his lips on a silent cry, swallowing his voice, refusing to give it to anyone, now, but the little priest.

“ _Again_.”

Hannibal’s fingers curl against the leather straps, tearing open the thin, newly-healed skin over his wrists. He grips it hard enough that it cuts into his fingers, into his arm, he clenches his teeth.

He feels the lash peel a stripe of skin from his back and lets his head fall forward. The greatest pain is not from the tearing - no, that is a sudden sensation like first contact with a flame. It is the air that passes across his raw muscle after, every breath shifting his body, exposing it.

“You _will_ die here,” Mason promises, a fist snarled tight in Hannibal’s hair. He pulls him against the bindings that hold his arms in place before him, jerking him far back over his heels, the stone unyielding against his knees. “But whether you die in God’s _grace_ or God’s _wrath_ , well,” the inquisitor laughs, loud, throwing Hannibal’s head forward. “That is _entirely_ up to you.”

No one counts the lashes taken. None but Will who snaps a tangle of straps against his back, each wrapped around a sliver of metal. No one knows but he, and he is the only one that should know the depth of his wrong-doing.

Will brings Hannibal water, as he promised.

He holds the doctor’s head gently in the palm of his hand as he holds the cup in the other, directing a slow spill against his lips so as not to choke him, not to hurt him. It takes coaxing to have Hannibal drink, now, with his throat burned by bile and blood from being drowned and revived again and again. But he needs it, needs to keep his fluids up, needs to keep himself functional.

Will brings Hannibal food, as he promised.

Cheese to line his stomach, rye bread to fill it. Most days Hannibal can eat on his own, sitting propped a certain way so as not to pull any more of the cuts along his back open. Most days, he eats in silence, and always offers Will half of what the little priest brings him. Sometimes their hands touch. Sometimes Will’s hair falls from behind his ears and Hannibal gently sets the curls back. Sometimes they pray together, but mostly Hannibal sits and listens as Will does.

Will can no longer bring medicine.

The little garden has been picked dry, some plants slowly growing new shoots and little leaves but not enough for what Hannibal needs. He tells Will that his presence is balm enough. Sometimes Will believes him.

Will rends himself asunder, extinguishing prayer candles against his arm, lashing himself until he feels nothing. Every blossom of blood from his skin is beseeching, that scarlet stripes along his skin so that Hannibal does not have to shed it. Every welt that rises is filled with praise for a God that Will searches for with litanies for protection that Hannibal be armored where Will is not.

He seeks a cilice, its metal prongs digging sharp into his pale thigh, so that not a step is taken nor a seat sought which does not remind him of how the innocent doctor suffers because of him.

Because of those like him.

Because of his God who does not give salvation to any in this place.

Hannibal does not flinch when the lock against his door snaps open. He remains prone, motionless, and for a moment Will’s breath stills as he imagines Hannibal’s has. He is too late now, his prayers have been empty whispers.

“Little priest.”

Will could sob for the relief that the utterance, raw and ragged, brings to him undeserved.

“Water, for you,” Will murmurs, each word drumming painful sparks behind his eyes. The headaches have returned as if in retribution for trying to save the soul of this damned man. Trembling, Will lowers himself with a grimace to set the ewer beside Hannibal, as cruel spines savage his leg to ribbons beneath his robes.

Hannibal swallows, thick and slow, eyes opening slowly as he looks to the ceiling, to the small window in the door that heralds either his salvation or the possibility of his death, nightly. He is thinner, now, than when he was first brought in. Ribs visible through the skin, collarbones stark. His cheeks are sunken, skin sallow. He is tired, he is so tired and Will wants to know what other penance he can pay to give this man mercy.

“You’re hurting,” Hannibal murmurs, turning his head to look at Will where he sits. He slides his arm across the stone floor to gently touch against Will’s knee again, always there, before he ventures further, to fingers and wrists and skittering warm pulse.

Will does not go to the stool anymore, though he leaves where it is for propriety’s sake. He sits against the same wall as his doctor, the same hard ground beneath and the same cold wall against his back. The little priest attempts to shake his head, to dissuade Hannibal from what he already knows, but he hardly completes the movement before his head spins dizzy and bile rises from his empty belly into his throat.

His throat jerks and he swallows it back down.

“Penance,” Will tells the man, watching as Hannibal’s hand glides over the stiff wool that scrapes against him, and settles instead skin to skin. Every time, no matter how many days Will has gone without food, how many lashes he has given himself, how tightly he has locked his cilice into place, that touch - that gentle, careful touch - eases him.

He wishes he could give the same to Hannibal.

He prays for it every waking moment that is still forced upon him.

“The milfoil and the comfrey,” Will tells him, forcing a smile, “they have not grown back yet. The cold, I think, is culling them before they can bloom.”

Hannibal’s fingers curling tighter stop Will’s apology before he can utter it, drying his mouth and speeding his pulse. His heart lurches, weak, wonderfully weak from so small a touch. God has never moved Will in such a way. Perhaps, he considers, as the doctor’s hand eases against his own - perhaps this is as near to God as he will ever feel again.

“You should not pay penance for something so cruelly forced upon you,” Hannibal murmurs, moving to take up the ewer and drink, catching stray drops against his hand so as not to waste. Beside him, Will sits motionless, muscles tense and breathing uneven. He is in pain, and the cloying reek of fever rests around him once more, as it had when Hannibal first met him.

Gently, Hannibal reaches with his other hand to set his palm to Will’s forehead. His fingertips brush the fine curls at Will’s hairline, and the little priest shivers and grasps harder against Hannibal’s hand, digging his other nails into the floor.

He burns, from the inside out, he burns.

“Lavender,” Hannibal murmurs, “if the valerian root has run out. The smell will soothe you, ease you to sleep.”

“I shouldn’t -”

“You’re hurting,” Hannibal says again. He presses his fingertips gently to Will’s left temple, light circles and soft pressure until Will arches and makes a sound like a pleading little mewl. “I am loathe to see you hurting.”

Will manages a laugh, soft as the movement of moth’s wings, dire as when they brush too close to flame. Hannibal sinks his fingers a little firmer; the sound becomes a shudder.

“I, too,” he murmurs.

Slowly, Will drags himself closer to the man. Hannibal’s fingers still for as long as it takes Will to turn and settle his back against Hannibal’s chest. The sound of metal scrapes the earth as the little priest adjusts his legs, and his belly twists tighter not in hunger or pain now, but a far gentler, far smaller sensation entirely. He can feel Hannibal’s heart beat against his back.

A shock of pain rivets Will taut as Hannibal brings his hands up again to Will’s temples. Smoothing aside his wild hair, slow circles unwind the knot of pain within, and Will’s lips part in issuance of a helpless sound, a whimper.

“I pray,” Will whispers, “it may serve as a sort of stigmata. Your wounds becoming mine. I can take them. I will. I will wear them.” He starts to lift his hands to rest on Hannibal’s knees, hovering for a moment before lowering them to his lap again. “Should that not prove effective -”

“It will not.”

“Should it not,” sighs Will, “then at least you do not suffer alone.”

Hannibal makes a sound, not unlike the pained little thing Will had made when he moved. He massages the migraine from behind Will’s eyes with careful, deliberate pushes of rough fingertips. He does, until Will’s breathing eases, until he stops trembling so against Hannibal’s chest. He is a child, barely older than, and Hannibal cannot believe that so much of his life has been in suffering, torturing his exquisite mind by forcing it to torture others.

He sighs, and with a gentle palm, seeks down to rest it against Will’s thigh. He hushes him when Will flinches, the pain intense, almost enough to numb him but there, always there, throbbing and aching. Hannibal keeps one hand against Will’s forehead, stroking his sweat-damp hair from his face, pressing his nose against the soft curls.

He moves his fingers, careful curls of them, to slowly draw up the fabric of the cassock. He soothes Will as he fusses, as he blushes deep and squirms and causes himself more pain. When his fingers brush metal, Will whines in pain, and Hannibal closes his eyes as he sets his hand against the cold stone floor beneath them, turning his head against Will.

“Little priest,” he sighs. “Please, I beg of you do not hurt yourself this way. Not over me.”

Will reaches for the hem of his cassock and tugs it low, to hide bruises laid livid against pale skin, to hide his own trembling thigh and the metal prongs that push unrelenting against tender skin. He squirms but finds Hannibal's hand against his chest. Will's heart speeds, as if struggling nearer to that touch, and he turns his head to rest it back against the doctor's shoulder. Petal-soft lips unfurl and he breathes against Hannibal's pulse. Heat against heat, delicate skin to delicate skin.

Reminder to them both that they are yet alive.

Reminder to them both that they are yet human.

"It is sanctification, for me," Will explains, he tries to explain, he falters and swallows hard. "To purify the flesh by reminding me that I am within it."

"There are kinder ways."

"If I am a martyr then let me be one," Will murmurs. "What I suffer is so little by compare."

His breath cuts short when strong fingers rise from chest to throat, wrapping warm over where it jerks when Will swallows. Will imagines things, sinful things, and turns his body enough to rest the weight of his leg against the cilice.

"What can I bring for you?" Will asks, and he hates how small his voice sounds, how helpless and childlike are his words. "Tell me what I can do."

"Stop this," Hannibal says. "Do not punish yourself this way. Please."

Will makes another sound, presses his thigh harder against the ground and Hannibal gently strokes his fingers against trembling hot skin. Against him, Will presses closer, trying to get away from that touch and seek another, finding comfort in the sin he is committing, in the pain he suffers for it.

Hannibal's fingers seek for the leather laces that hold the cilice tight and gently pull the knot free. Will whimpers, an agony greater in the pain being removed than in having it. Hannibal is careful to peel away the cruel device, to look, as much as he can in the wan light, at the damage wrought. Deep cuts and heavy bruising, seeping fluid that is thankfully clear and not foul-smelling.

He takes the thing away and folds it, once, again, and rests it on the floor. Then he carefully folds down Will’s robes to cover him again.

"You can treat it as I do my wrists," Hannibal whispers to him. "Frequently wash the wounds so they do not fester. Find lavender and keep it beneath your pillow. Sleep and eat and pray. That is what you can do."

Hannibal's words stir Will's hair, mouth brushing against the little priest's curls and skittering goosebumps over his limbs. Will draws closer, between Hannibal's legs, held against the doctor's chest by strong arms and for a moment, Will doesn't care. His intent is not to sin, and what grievance would God have in the tormented seeking relief?

Will parts his lips, so close to Hannibal's throat that he can feel the doctor's warmth. He considers what he can do, but he does not. It is enough. Hannibal has told him that he is enough.

And many things beyond that. He has not poisoned Will, he has not once raised his voice or fists, he has not once acted with anything other than compassion. Through him, Will has learned of plants and medicine. He has learned of the world outside the Church's walls. He has learned of himself.

Blessings, all blessings. Will turns his leg again but no spurs dig. Lifting a hand, he curls clumsy fingers over Hannibal's own, and studies him in the dark. Sharp cheekbones made sleeker through hunger. Deep-set eyes, dark as consecrated wine, and a bow-shaped mouth pale and perfect. Will watches him, and he squeezes his hand, and he wonders.

"I will," he says, clearing his throat as if it might hide the way his voice cracks. "If you tell me."

"Tell you?"

"Who are you?" Will asks, a far gentler question than the screeching accusations and demands made of Hannibal by the other inquisitor. "Let me know you beyond what has been done to you here."

 

Hannibal sighs but it is hardly put upon, more considering, perhaps, what to say. He does not fear that he will incriminate himself here, not further, not with Will, but he doesn’t know what to tell him, where to start.

“I studied in Italy,” he says at length. “I began as a sculptor’s apprentice.”

He thinks of those days, running errands through Firenze, for clay and marble, sharpening chisels and cleaning the studio. He thinks of how happy he was, then. He feels Will shift against him, a sound both confused and delighted pulling from his throat, and Hannibal smiles.

“I never became a master, though I cared for mine deeply, through his illness until he died. Perhaps that what started me on this path, instead. From creating bodies in likeness, to saving them in flesh.”

"You taught yourself - the plants and the treatments," Will asks, and Hannibal's considering smile plucks up his own.

"I cannot take such credit for it," responds the doctor. "I learned from those around me. Discerning the contents of the tinctures they made to ease stomach pains, examining poultices to find what in them made wounds cease their seeping. Ancient knowledge, passed from healer to healer."

Will's brows draw in a little. The words should concern him, he knows - Hannibal describes his care in the same manner in which the Church describes witchcraft. But Will has felt the effects of it, and he cannot imagine that God would have granted him relief were it sourced from darkness.

"I prayed, then, too," Hannibal notes, voice soft. It is a venture of trust, and Will returns it with a lifted hand and fingertips soft against Hannibal's cheek. The older man rests his chin on the little priest's shoulder. Together, they breathe.

"You don't now," says Will gently. "Have you declared apostasy?"

A child's question, Will fears, spoken with a child's voice. Will is afraid, suddenly, a stark and terrible fear cooling his skin. He has thought, in his worst moments, that there would be relief in death for them both. There are few enough sins that cannot be forgiven with perfect confession and perfect penance. But to renounce God entirely...

There is no mercy for that, and nothing Will can do to heal a soul so butchered.

There is silence for a long time between them, and Hannibal does not answer. He had never declared it, to God or anyone, he had just stopped praying one day and never began again. It had not felt like a sin to him, it had not felt wrong. It just felt like he had grown to a new kind of prayer, a different sort of worship.

“I hold no hate towards God,” Hannibal replies honestly, shifting behind Will a little to settle himself more comfortably. “I no longer stand to ceremony, but I pray in my own way. I save the lives He does not want to end so quickly. I help in any way that is granted me.”

Will could weep for his relief. The world is full of those whose practice has lapsed. To declare one's self in rejection of God's grace, however, to rebuke His forgiveness - that is a rendering of one's soul, irredeemable. His eyes suddenly warm, the only sound that Will allows is a little sigh that shudders forth. Trembling fingertips splay over the doctor's stubbled cheek.

The ceremony matters. The ritual matters. The rites kept and refined for centuries matter.

But none matters so much as earnest prayer and Will turns to sit facing Hannibal. Drawn near, between the older man's legs, Will settles his shoulder to Hannibal's chest and his brow to the doctor's temple. His lips brush dry over Hannibal's cheek as the little priest asks, softly:

"Would you pray with me?"

Hannibal swallows, eyes closing and body relaxing with the welcome weight and warmth against him. He doesn’t feel the need to pray. He fears, in truth, that it is too late for him to pray, too late for them to be heard. God has many more in situations crueler to hear before him, he should not waste his time.

But Will’s earnestness, his sweet suggestion and passion that he holds for so simple a thing, so calming a routine, Hannibal cannot deny him.

“I would,” he says. “I will. When next you do, I will join you.”

It matters more to him, in truth, that Will smiles, that he sighs relief and gratitude against Hannibal’s cheek. That is what faith is, to him. Faith in kindness and mercy, faith in the goodness of men despite the cruelty of the world. He will pray for his little priest, and hope those words are heard.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Will promised Hannibal that he would not abandon him._
> 
> _He is certain, though, that God has already fled._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by our beloved [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/)! We love you!

For weeks, his torments have been between himself and the head inquisitor. For weeks, Will has only come to him late at night, drawing near and whispering prayers against Hannibal's skin, thin words of comfort to accompany the food and water smuggled to Hannibal's cell. For weeks, he has not been forced to break in front of the little priest, and so could steel himself to seem less harmed by the time they saw each other again.

Hannibal is not sure what twists his stomach harder - the sight of the rack in the room to which he's been brought, or the sight of Will seated against the wall. He should not be here, he should keep distance. The more he sees Hannibal hurt, the more he mortifies himself.

Around and around and around.

It needs an end.

"A job for two men, today?" Hannibal remarks, ignoring Will otherwise and focusing his dark gaze on Mason alone.

"The _confessor_ has been taking _rather easy_ paths of late," the inquisitor responds, before he jerks his head and a backhand from one of the guards is enough to bring blood to Hannibal's mouth and the man nearly to his knees. "It is _important_ for us to remember _why_ we do _what_ we do, and _whom_ we're facing."

Hannibal says nothing, just carefully parts his lips and works his jaw before closing his mouth again. He refrains from pointing out how one path may appear easy to a man who does not have to walk it. He refrains from pointing out that it is clear who and what is being fought, and that the battle from the opposite side is just as frightening and just as fierce. He wishes, only, that he could stop this pain for his little priest. He should not have to see this.

“You have been _remarkably_ resilient. _Truly_. You have not expired from lack of _sleep_ or _water_ or _food_. What filthy _powers_ you have summoned to keep yourself _alive_ , it is _unfathomable_ how a man can be so _Godless_.”

“Had God wished me dead I would be,” Hannibal says, eyes up, body tensed for another blow that doesn’t come. Instead, a laugh that pulls at Hannibal’s skin.

“It’s true, it’s _true_ you would be. But God is _merciful_ only to those who _deserve_ His _mercy_ , heretic. He wishes you to live so you _suffer_ for your _sins_. So you _understand_ what it is to _renounce God_.”

To live is to commit heresy, to survive and persevere and withstand all manner of torment.

Perhaps, then, there is innocence in death.

Hannibal allows himself the flavor of that word, and finds it not wanting. Until, at least, he hears the soft whisper of Will's robes, the lift of his fingers as he marks himself. Even now, silent and under duress, he prays.

Hannibal can smell the blood from him, the clear leaking fluid from old wounds.

Hannibal can smell lavender.

"Put him down," Mason snarls, and Hannibal is jerked back from his feet. The aged wood of the rack digs splinters into the doctor's back, striped raw from the lash. He chokes back a sound of genuine pain and does not struggle when his arms are lifted above his head and bound. Restrained bare, he cannot move from the tightness that ratchets his body into a long, trembling line.

Mason strides closer, steepling fingers clad in kid-gloves before his mouth.

"Does the _Devil_ bring you food, I wonder. Does the _Devil_ bring you _water_? You'd have died four times _over_ by now and yet _here_ you are." Mason rests a hand to Hannibal's cheek and pats him, twice softly, and once enough to sting. "As lucid and self-assured as you've _ever_ been."

Hannibal swallows, eyes on the cruel ice-blue ones on him. He wonders at the story of this man, as young as Will but power hungry, cruel, angry, and entirely faithless. He is terrifying in his conviction, but he believes only in himself and his own higher power. He is more a heretic than Hannibal, deserving of these cruelties, and even then Hannibal would not subject him to them, were their positions reversed.

He wonders.

He says nothing.

He weathers another sharp slap with quickly closed eyes and a pursing of his lips, and forces his breathing steady.

“By God’s will,” he says.

Hannibal twists with the slap that follows, head jerking aside. The muscle of his jaw flickers firm and he shuts his eyes, lips parting when Mason snares Hannibal by the mouth to force a sound from him.

"You _speak_ for _God_? God who has given _you_ over to _this_ , _God_ who has _abandoned_ you to _me_ for the _gravity_ of your own _pride_? Turn him. A full rotation."

Hannibal does not tense, as all others do, when the order is given. He loosens, slackening strong shoulders to let them pull long when the guard turns the crank that stretches his body longer still. It is savagery, to pull him so tight he trembles, and Will watches Mason baleful and breathless as his own heart twitches taut.

"Patience," Will manages, a low murmur that draws a knife across his throat from Mason's look alone. "If he is in too much pain to speak -"

"There is _no such thing_!" Mason turns on the little priest, spilling out his rage with a gloved fist against the wall so hard that Will jumps from it. "Everything _we_ have done - or are _meant_ to have done," he adds, "has in _fact_ done _nothing_ to this monster. I wonder," he laughs, a sudden crackle of delight as blinding bright as midday sun. "I do _wonder why_ he is still so _cogent_."

Will does not let himself look to his doctor. He does not need to, to know that Hannibal's teeth are bared and his lips curled across them. He does not need to see the damage being wrought to feel it in his own body. Regal and - yes - proud Hannibal, gentle Hannibal, compassionate Hannibal...

What can he say?

Mason watches him a moment longer before turning on his heel back to the doctor again. Hannibal tries to ease his breath, to soothe and calm himself when his muscles already scream from the stretch. He does not look at the confessor who looms over him.

"You _will_ speak. You will _break_. By my hand as God directs it to _punish_ and _teach_ -"

"You have taught me of cruelty," Hannibal murmurs, gasping out when a gloved hand squeezes his throat, presses to his windpipe. He does not look to Will though he can see at the corner of his eye a movement of the cassock as the little priest moves closer as though to stop this.

"I want _names_ , heretic," Mason purrs. "For every _word_ that falls from your lips that is _not_ a _name_ I will have them turn the machine. For _every word_. Inch by _inch_. I will _pull_ you _apart_ , _doctor_ , I care little if you leave from here in _pieces_."

Bile burns in Will’s throat and he lifts a hand to hold it back. His brow creases, eyes dark and hollowed deep from the sleepless rings that encircle. There is anger in his expression, vining throughout his misery. There is wrath. Will’s cassock billows as he stands, hands clenched to his sides as fists, and soft steps carry him towards Mason until Hannibal speaks:

“Marcellinus of Rome.”

Mason blinks, unaware yet of Will so precariously close to him, as the little priest’s footsteps still. Coiling closer, Mason lifts a hand towards the guards and cants his head aside.

“So the Devil _does_ listen to _reason_ ,” Mason sighs, almost shivering with his own delight. “And a citizen of _Rome_ you say?”

Will’s lips part, eyes widening, and he turns away from the doctor only just as Mason looks to him.

“Imagine,” Will says, “that the demons have come so near to the Holy See?” Brows uplifting, Will leans close to Mason, whispering against his ear, turned so that Hannibal can clearly see him say, “Imagine that you are the one who uproots them. A conspiracy of devilry so close to the His Holiness, and Father Mason was the one to stop it.”

The appeal widens the inquisitor’s eyes, before they narrow again. He turns from Will to stride back towards Hannibal.

“One _name_ is hardly a _conspiracy_. But knowing _one_ name means that you know _more_ \- _friends_ of _friends_ ,” he explains. He lifts his hand and curls his fist and Will looks away, hand pressed across his mouth to silence any sound that might issue forth unbidden as the rack pulls a half-turn tighter.

Hannibal makes a sound, breathless and small, sweat beading against his skin as he tries to remain relaxed, as he tries to allow his body to stretch to its capacity without tension to hurt himself more. But he aches, his skin burns and every breath is an effort. With gritted teeth, Hannibal stares towards the ceiling and passes his tongue over parched lips.

He wonders when greed and cruelty became the currency of the Holy See. He wonders when education got pushed to the wayside and power began to fester like an infection in a tooth, unseen but aching, deadly until discovered too late.

"Felix," Hannibal murmurs. "A priest of Rome -"

"What did they _seek_ with the Devil?" Mason asks, and Hannibal's brows furrow, he shakes his head. 

"You asked for names -"

"And now I want _reasons_ ," Mason says, leaning closer still, grasping Hannibal's hair and forcing his eyes to his own. " _Names_ mean _little_ to me without _proof_ of their _indiscretion_. Proof of their _sin_ against the _Church_." 

Not against God, Will notes, eyes quick to seek Hannibal, with him even here, even in nothing but granting him eyes to see his pain. Mason lifts his hand again and Will’s lips part in sympathy to the cry that issues from the doctor, helpless, as his spine pops quietly, every vertebra aligned as it should not be by the cruel stretching.

"Life -" Hannibal pants. "He sought to live when God had thrust an illness upon him -"

Mason hums, lips splitting in a wide gash over broad teeth. As he speaks, he curls his fingers slowly, one by one, into a fist. As he does, the wheel turns slow, and Hannibal's breath tugs shorter as his body stretches long.

" _Life_ is for _Our Father_ to _give_ or to _take_ ," he seethes, voice rising imperious. "Not for _mortal men_ to _dictate._ "

Will's throat snatches shut as Mason wraps his hand over Hannibal's mouth. He has touched those lips, held wet cloths to them when after torment Hannibal could not drink for himself. Soft beneath his fingers, Will has marveled at the wisdom they hold, the danger of the knowledge therein. He has imagined, late at night with a prayer on his lips and sin in his mind. He has hoped.

And Mason, forcing his palm hard enough to stop the man's foreshortened breath -

It is a defilement.

" _Now_ , at least, we _know_ what makes our Faustus _tick._ " He barks a laugh as Hannibal's face colors livid, and lets him go with a brisk slap to his cheek. "And so if _pain_ is what _moves_ you, then _pain_ is what we will _use_. You would look _dashing_ in a pair of _boots_."

Robes fanning, he pivots away from the man held taut enough to tear, should one more flight of fancy take the inquisitor, should one more lust to hear his pain grow gravid in his heart. He comes to Will instead, bowing their heads together, brows pressed.

"More names," whispers Mason, wild-eyed. "We'll stir up the whole _nest_ of them."

Will’s eyes are wide, bright and too shiny, too close to spilling like the sea they share a color with. He can barely breathe with this man against him, he can barely breathe when Hannibal is so close and struggling to himself. He closes his eyes, and in a perverse facsimile of affection, turns his head against Mason’s.

“We will,” he says. “We will, every single one.” He pushes conviction into his words, surety, delight to mirror Mason’s, though he feels none of it. With a brief bite to his lip he opens his eyes again, meets Mason’s own, bright and excited, almost childishly so, at the prospect of something so great.

“Go,” Will tells him. “Get him the boots. I will break his spirit with words and kindnesses, the lies within them. When you return, he will confess, the fear alone will make him.”

Mason blinks, eyes seeking between Will’s own, before he grins again, bright, and sets a gloved hand against the back of Will’s neck, pulling him closer still, as though in an embrace.

“We all get a _taste_ for it,” Mason whispers harshly. “ _All_ of us, when we are _enlightened_ we remember, _once_ we are enlightened we _never_ forget.”

With a cruel squeeze to the back of Will’s neck, Mason lets him go and gestures for the guards to follow him to carry the dreaded implements for him once they retrieve them. He leaves the door, he leaves Will, he leaves the doctor stretched taut against the rack.

Will times the beat of his heart to every step Mason takes away from them. Two to one. Three to one. Four to one. And he breaks.

Shaking hands strengthen against the crank. Will jerks it towards himself and wonders how relief can sound so much like agony as it shudders forth from the doctor beside him. He cannot remove him from it, he cannot give him the control of his own limbs back - even that basic right is restricted this way - but the tension gives and the strain eases, turn by turn.

Will times the beat of his heart to every breath Hannibal pants beside him. Four to one. Three to one. Two to one.

“I’m -”

“No,” Hannibal whispers, and Will swallows his apology. The little priest looks to the door and shakes his head.

“But -”

“No.”

Will would cry out if he didn’t think his voice would be heard by the inquisitor. He would cry out if he thought it might be heard by God instead. The boots will break the man, a brutal punishment elegant in its simplicity. Broad metal plates with thick screws. Will hears the shriek of metal against metal, bone against bone. A bone breaking from a strike makes a cracking sound, like a branch snapping in two, or stags at battle in the woods. A bone breaking from pressure crackles, like fire spitting on green tinder.

He shouldn’t know that.

But he does.

Will parts his lips to speak again but there’s nothing he can say now, no penitence for this. Hannibal’s brow is yet creased as sensation returns to him, fingers fanning numb. His eyes are closed and he is pale as a shroud.

There are no prayers that Will has found that will be heard, and so he says nothing instead, and merely lays his head against Hannibal’s chest to hear his heart still beating.

It hammers, quick and alive with adrenaline and panic, the body keeping itself conscious, keeping itself here, fighting, even when it is impossible for it to, physically. Slowly, breath by breath, the beat eases to something more human, something calm. The beat Will remembers from the night they had shared prayers for the first time.

“You should go, little priest,” Hannibal whispers, and when Will looks up at him, his eyes are still closed, fingers lax in the restraints. “Before they pull from me words that are not mine, and names of more martyrs they have never acknowledged.”

"Had he ever truly studied, he'd have known them," Will remarks. "You're very clever."

Gentle praise to accompany gentle fingers, that wipe sweat from Hannibal's brow before it can burn his eyes. Warm breath against Hannibal's chest, like the touch that slides between his wrist and rope to relieve the pressure onto himself instead.

"Little priest," Hannibal says again. "Go. Before -"

"No," Will says, his turn this time to disregard insistence that matter not. "I will be with you, remember? I will not leave you alone with him. I will not abandon you as He has abandoned us." Will breathes a frail laugh, and when he turns his cheek to Hannibal's chest, it is warm with tears. "You've made a heretic of me," whispers Will, attempting a smile.

Hannibal’s heart beats faster, against his better judgement, against his power and will. He cannot see this man suffer more, he cannot see him tortured by other hands when he has so tortured himself with his own. Hannibal lifts his eyes to the ceiling, further back as he arches his neck, to hide the way they brim with unwelcome tears.

He cannot make him leave.

And he cannot see him suffer. He will not.

Beyond the door come footfalls, harsh sounds of laughter and words still muffled by the hollow echoing of the cold stone rooms. Hannibal swallows, he lets the tears slip down from the corners of his eyes as he closes them.

“Pray for me,” he breathes, and with a harsh breath, he bucks up to unsettle Will from against him, as Mason returns with the guards, the boots borne between them.

“God told me,” Hannibal’s voice is raised, merely above a quiet tone but louder than anything he has spoken in a long time. Will’s brows furrow in confusion. “He told me where to go for the bodies, for the men and women who had died before their time. He told me what to cut and what to see.”

Mason's brow perks. He folds his fingers together as he comes slowly near, Will still close beside.

" _Well_ ," Mason says. "That _is_ of _interest_. A confession in _earnest_ , born of only _seeing_ the boots. The first _real admission_ we've heard yet."

Will does not look to Mason when the inquisitor sends him an exaggerated wink. His gaze is fixed on Hannibal, horror rising and gut churning all at once. His doctor speaks the truth. No - he confesses it.

"A reaction to pain and exhaustion," Will says, voice lowering. "Nothing more."

“He told me and I listened,” Hannibal says, eyes still to the ceiling, body taut in agony and fear both. He does not look at Will. He does not look at Mason. He speaks only the truths that matter, those that are enough to entirely condemn him. Those that are enough to pull his life away and allow Will to live his.

“I learned by cutting dead flesh. I learned by watching blood congeal. I allowed myself to become God, as He sought me to become Him.”

It is heresy, it is horror, it is something Will should not hear, should never have heard, yet he must. He must, to let Hannibal go, to allow his mercy and his goodness and his heart to bring his faith back to him. He cannot balance his faith on a broken man, and Hannibal cannot live with himself, if he does.

“I confess,” Hannibal whispers, finally. “I confess to desecration in God’s name. Because He spoke to me, and begged of me the divine.”

Mason's laugh is like a clap of thunder, and only as it jerks Will to attention does the little priest step away. He does not turn though, he will not. His jaw sets, and hurt - a breaking, spilling hurt - fills hot in his eyes.

Will promised Hannibal that he would not abandon him.

He is certain, though, that God has already fled.

"Defiling _human remains_ is a _foul_ deed," Mason seethes, grinning, only a breath away from losing himself to laughter again. " _Our_ God would never _allow_ it, let alone _condone_. And from _where_ did you gather your... _materials_?"

"Churchyards," Hannibal admits. "Family plots."

" _Desecrating_ sacred _ground_ -"

"Enough," Will says. "Enough, Mason. What more do you want?"

It is enough. It is more than. Will lowers himself to the window ledge and only then closes his eyes, fingers pressed to the bridge of his nose. The world undulates against him and Will feels his stomach rise.

“What I _want_ ,” Mason says, voice rising to a near-shout despite the room being quiet, despite no one else speaking. “Is to _cleanse_ this _town_ , to _cleanse_ the earth in the name of our _Lord_." Mason steps back to the rack, drawing his palm almost lovingly down Hannibal’s chest before digging his fingers into his taut stomach in a cruel grab.

“I want to watch this _heretic_ burn.”

Will can barely breathe, can barely see. So long he had helped, so long he had given mercy and kindness, understanding and gentleness. Was this all just cruelty? Was this all just a prolonging of a life that did not deserve to be lived?

Had it all been lies?

No. 

No, it could not have been, not with Hannibal. Not with every truth he had spoken to Will, in the evenings they shared together. Not with every mercy returned in kind, twofold, threefold, with healing and knowledge and company. A confidant. A friend.

_More._

No.

No, it was not lies. This was the greatest sacrifice, and Hannibal had taken it first. He took it so that Will would not. So that Will could live, and redeem and regain his faith again.

“Tomorrow in the square,” Mason announces to the room at large, frowning down at the boots that will not be useful now. They would prove too cruel if the guards were to witness his whimsy. “ _Gather_ people, _tell_ them. Let them bear _witness_ to a heretic’s demise.”

Mason turns on his heel and leaves the doctor to the mercy of the guards, to be removed from the torture device, to be returned to his cell for one more night of cold and restlessness and fear.

“And keep him _up_ , William. Grant him the _mercy_ of his _last night_ on earth. Since you give mercies out like one would sweets.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Eyes closed for only an instant, he envisions the proud, uptilted chin, the man’s broad chest and stalwart heart, fearless. Brave. Bowing. Crumbling. Screaming. Breaking._
> 
> _Ash._
> 
> _A sound jerks from Will’s throat before he can stop himself._
> 
> _“Why,” Will asks._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by our beloved [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/)!

_A room_ , Will tells the guards. _Those for guests of the Church are all open. Have one done up for him. A meal of his choosing. Water and clean clothes._

_Because I have the authority to do so, and you heard the inquisitor’s instructions despite._

_Because there is no risk of escape if I keep him manacled to the bed._

_Because we are charged with showing grace to those so near to death._

The orders are given in whispered command outside of Hannibal’s hearing, the hiss of a conflagration taking flame inside him. A frenetic fire, licking hot beneath his skin, pushes his pulse to a crackling pace. Will does not visit the chapel now. He does not bow against his bed, nor before the crucifix hung solemn above.

He has emptied of the need for prayers, as his stomach empties itself twice into the washbasin in his room.

Nothing he has done is worth the life of another, nothing worthy of the sacrifice of this noble and learned man. Will’s body wracks tight as he pulls himself to stand. It would be so simple to see himself immolated in kind. Little more than whispered words of illicit deeds with other men, dalliances with the Devil to sate his own unnatural lust.

Will presses his hand to his mouth and laughs against the door to Hannibal’s room, as a child chases away the dark with a guttering candle-flame.

He wants to sob, but it is only laughter that is forthcoming. Will presses his fingers to the corners of his eyes, up through his hair, and only when he has soothed his breathing to a manageable pace does Will set a hand to the door handle and let himself in.

Within, Hannibal sits on the bed, eyes turned towards the window, looking out into the quiet world for the first time in weeks, months, perhaps. It Is almost intimate, Will feels like he is interrupting, but he does not go.

He closes the door.

Hannibal does not turn to him, eyes still to the window, battered hands clasped between his knees. There is food for him, soft bread and butter and cheese, an ewer of water and a clean cup. He has not touched any of it. He sits. He watches the world beyond the window, and only when the silence grows oppressive does he sigh softly.

"You have given me the greatest gift, aside from your company - letting me see the sky one last time without foul smoke burning my eyes."

Will imagines his heart would sink had it not already fallen to the pit of his stomach long before. He has seen children, men and women, burnt upon the pyre. It is a hideous death, and its torment begins long before the flames lick flesh. It turns humans to animals, drives them to a primal frenzy, pulls howls from throats and bones from sockets as they thrash against the stake. Will cannot imagine Hannibal that way.

No.

He does not want to.

But he can, all the same. Eyes closed for only an instant, he envisions the proud, uptilted chin, the man’s broad chest and stalwart heart, fearless. Brave. Bowing. Crumbling. Screaming. Breaking.

Ash.

A sound jerks from Will’s throat before he can stop himself.

“Why,” Will asks. His voice is no longer the soft, lilting thing that sang the Kyrie to Hannibal to quiet his sobs. No longer the peace that carried prayer against his cheek. Stripped as raw as his back, bruised as his thigh, he shakes his head. “Why would you tell him? I know you spoke truth, I don’t understand why but - you needn’t have. I could have - I might have helped.”

"No.” It is almost a gentle chastisement, and as Hannibal turns to look at Will, his eyes narrow in a smile that doesn't quite touch his lips. "He would have broken my bones and you would have punished yourself for it. You would have hurt, because I hurt."

Hannibal watches the anger, the fear, the desperation on Will’s face and shifts slightly on the bed, gesturing for the little priest to join him.

"I don’t want you to suffer."

Will’s fingers fan wide and curl slowly to fists once more. His feet tug him closer despite himself and he sucks his lips between his teeth. Blue eyes avert but return just as swiftly. Will does not want to look away now, not now. He wants to remember the man just so.

“And what of you?” Will demands, standing at the edge of the bed. “You will suffer on the stake. You will suffer after, God has been cruel to us and I cannot think He would be kind now. You said yourself -”

“I spoke the truth.”

“You mutilated bodies,” Will whispers.

“How else to know how the body works but to see inside it?”

There is reason to this. Logic. A rationality that all at once makes sense to Will and curls his stomach. He must recant, he must, and when he does Will can put a stop to the proceedings. By force, if necessary - with suspicion as to himself, certainly. He sets a knee to the bed and bends his fingers into his robes and pleads.

“I will suffer without you.”

Hannibal looks up at him, takes in the softness of his form, the terror within it. To be left alone, abandoned in this horrible place to suffer and cause suffering. Hannibal wishes he could free him from this. He wishes he could take him away from this.

"You will be free," Hannibal says, "to pursue your faith without an anchor here. To leave to another village, another church, and find your peace there."

Will makes a gentle sound of protest and Hannibal sets his palm against Will’s cheek, thumb stroking softly beneath Will’s eye.

"Another church," Will murmurs, a soft snort punctuating his words. He turns his cheek into Hannibal's hand and closes his eyes.

Before he can give himself reason not to - it would all be lies anyway - Will brings his other knee to the bed. Fumbling at his belt he brings the key loose and unlocks the manacle that holds Hannibal's other hand to the bed. Iron clanks as it falls free. The keys drop beside. Will brings his fingers to curl over Hannibal's own and keep it near.

A mortal sin is one in which the offender enters into with full deliberation and full consent. It sunders the soul and renders it dead, until revived by penitence, confession, and God's grace. Were a man to die in such a state, he would hurtle past purgatory towards the depths beneath.

Fire eternal, filth and pain and suffering.

It seems so far away from what Hannibal must face so soon.

Will rubs his cheek against his doctor's hand to dry it.

"Once," Will whispers, voice fragile as the skin struck thin across their backs. "One time, please. Let me know - let me know how it feels. I want -"

His voice cracks, and even the sound of him clearing his throat is choked.

"With you. So I have a memory of you not in the pain I've wrought. And I will either die a sinner or spend the rest of my life in atonement."

Hannibal's eyes close softly and he swallows. He cannot deny him. He would not. He brings his freed hand up to cup Will’s face softly and turns to him so they face each other on the bed, Will kneeling, Hannibal settled with one leg crooked beneath him.

He turns his head, just enough to rub forehead to forehead with Will, and feels him tremble. The ache, the fear he feels every day in denying himself who he is, what he wants, because of a doctrine that applies to centuries before and their rules then.

"Little priest," he murmurs, feels Will shake harder, set his hands to Hannibal’s arms to hold on. Hannibal smiles, parts his lips just against Will’s, and for the first time, sighs his name.

Then he leans closer, parts Will’s lips with his own, and kisses him.

It is so much softer than Will imagined, the press of another man's lips against his own. His brows knit and then he gentles, all at once, sinking low onto his heels. Carefully, clumsily, he follows the movements of his doctor's mouth. A sound as earnest as any prayer he's ever spoken blooms from far inside.

He expected hurt. Guilt. An agony as his soul was slain inside him. It does not come, not at all. He feels something crack inside, spilling heat, and pushes their lips tighter together.

Thin fingers whisper over linen as Will brings his hands to rest on Hannibal's shoulders. He is strong despite his torments, powerful despite his torture. Fingertips touch his doctor's neck and Will smiles.

He grins.

He laughs and when he does his cheeks are damp with tears.

"More," he whispers, touching another kiss, and another and another. "Please."

Hannibal hushes him, soft and fond, smiling in kind and bringing his hands up to frame Will’s face, to push the hair from his forehead and kiss against that next. Will is trembling but he is not afraid, he is not upset. Hannibal wonders if he feels, for once, truly free, and he is honored to be the one to introduce Will to this kindness.

Carefully, his hands seek down Will’s sides. He is slight but not starved, not emaciated by a self-decided punishment, no longer exhausted into frailty. At his sides, Hannibal’s fingers spread, warm and protective, and he arches up to kiss Will again when he seeks with eager lips and a fluttering laugh. His fingers beneath Will’s bent knees, against his thighs, and Hannibal pulls him closer, stands to hold Will against him, to allow him to curl his limbs up and around him to hold on.

It is close, intimate, wonderful, and Will cannot get enough, cannot stop trembling, cannot stop kissing the man who holds him so beautifully. This cannot be sin. Not this.

Will laughs, sweet and high and relieved in a way his doctor has never heard before. Thin arms snare around his neck, skinny legs catching around his waist. Will’s cassock rides high enough to bare his thighs and neither move to lower it, not like times before when Hannibal lowered it to cover Will’s modesty, when Will tugged it down past his knees in self-conscious awareness.

Hannibal’s strength is intoxicating. The raw masculine scent of sweat against his throat dizzies Will as he buries his nose to breathe it in. He pushes his fingers up through Hannibal’s hair and drags an awkward kiss against his throat, beneath his jaw, over sharp cheekbones to seek his mouth again. The lightning bolt never comes, the tearing sensation of his own soul ripping free. It feels bastioned by the man’s body against his own, built anew and fortified from the rubble into which this place had crumbled it.

Their eyes meet. Foreheads touching, noses brushing, they meet each other in open and honest desire to share this, one last mortal expression of affection between. Will’s heart jerks to his throat. Between his legs, his cock tugs quickly stiff. Belly roiling - not from hunger, pain, or angst - Will tucks another laugh into their clumsy kiss.

This is not the inferno.

This is not purgatory.

This is heaven on earth, to be held in the arms of a man who understands, who cares, who _sees_.

Will knows he loves him, and wordless, tucks the confession into a kiss. Their lips part and join, tangle and spread, and when Hannibal’s tongue brushes Will’s, the little priest arches hard against him, holy revelation given physical form.

Truly, he is beautiful, allowing his body to teach him pleasure, allowing his mind to accept it. Hannibal adjusts his hold and carefully lays Will to the bed. He is flushed and warm, fingers seeking out, curious now and no longer afraid. Hannibal grasps the hem of his shirt and removes it, letting It fall to the floor.

So often Will has seen him bared, for cruelties and beatings, dripping in cold water before being tossed into his cell to freeze, so many times it has been entirely clinical between them. Yet this is nothing like that. This is intimate and raw, this is beautiful. 

Seeking only a gentle nod in permission, Hannibal lets his fingers loosen the knot holding Will’s robes fastened at his waist. He knows not what intimacy is like between men, it has never been his desire to try, but for Will he would give anything. Would give his soul and life and heart to him. Careful hands push Will’s robes higher to bare him, though Hannibal’s eyes stay on Will’s, wide and blue.

Will’s cock stands stiff beneath his undergarments, a rigid line tugging the thin linen taut. A damp spot near the top would betray his desire if the rest of his body did not sing for it, a hymn as lovely and heartfelt as any the little priest has pressed to Hannibal’s wounded skin. Will is pale, his skin covered even when he dares venture out into sun by the thick black wool that Hannibal lifts from him seam by seam. Bruises and healing holes still circle his thigh as Will lifts a leg to press a foot into the bed. Squirming, uncertain movements, youthful and innocent, no matter what his Church would tell him.

Will sits up enough that Hannibal can lift the cassock from over his head. His hair fluffs wild around his face, blue eyes flare black as he leans in to steal another kiss, lips pushing to explore the other, breath and heat, wanting. Lifting unsteady hands, the little priest reaches for his doctor’s chest, and runs his fingertips along the thick swath of hair, over peaking nipples. He is firm to the touch, hard despite the soft skin. Will’s entire body - his being - arches towards Hannibal as they kiss again.

He has never felt a man this way before. He has never been allowed, by his own choosing, seeking instead a life of pious and willing denial rather than yielding to interests deemed prurient and sinful. But he has wondered. He has imagined. He has dreamed, even when he did not wish to, what it might be like to know another man’s strength against his own.

Will’s fingers lower as their kiss twines and unravels, and he hooks his fingers beneath the waistband of the linen underpants his doctor wears. They part enough to breathe, and Will’s petal-soft lips - flushed rosy and full - unfurl in a question he can’t bring himself to speak.

Hannibal’s sigh is answer enough. He ducks his head, enough to nuzzle against Will, enough to look between them as Will’s fingers work the string and loosen the garment from around Hannibal’s slim hips. It takes less than a stroke against skin, less than a touch for them to slide down Hannibal’s thighs and Will’s lips part wider.

Hannibal stands semi-erect, unlike when he is bared for torture, unlike when he has willingly bared himself for Will to tend the wounds he himself cannot reach. This is a response to pleasure, a response to good and desired and wanted. This is a response to Will, and the little priest’s breath catches before he reaches out to set his fingers tentatively against Hannibal’s taut stomach.

Hannibal watches Will, instead. The way Will’s own underclothes tent with his desire for him, the way he trembles with the sensations overpowering his entire being. Hannibal smiles, fond, warm, and turns his lips against Will’s soft curls.

“I could show you,” he sighs. “If you let me -”

“Yes.”

Hannibal moves his hand, slow and deliberate so Will can see, and sets it between the young man’s legs, hushing him when Will makes a sound and squirms from it. Then, slowly, he begins to rub, the flat of his hand, up and down from base to tip until Will is making sounds he can barely control, soft and breathless and wonderfully intimate.

Will bends. Belly tense, he pushes up against Hannibal's hand, forcing his eyes to remain open, fixed on the man above. His cock rises back against the pressure of his doctor's fingers, an involuntary response that tugs a laugh from the little priest. He has touched himself before, a few times when younger, and always confessed. Fumbling and furtive movements beneath his pants, frantic and quick. Nothing like this.

Nothing like Hannibal.

The touch of his doctor's mouth against his own is nearly enough to undo him. The sensation of his fingers beneath the waistband of Will's underclothes is enough that he grasps Hannibal's hand to stop him.

"I -"

Hannibal lifts a brow, smile curving beneath his eyes. Will's cheeks burn and he sucks his lower lip between his teeth. He lays back, and lifts his hips in invitation for Hannibal to bare him, before reaching for the man to cover him with his body instead.

They press close, and Hannibal is heavy against him, and Will feels his breath leave him in another laugh. This is heaven, this is divine, this is life and its meaning, its reason. Will wraps his arms around Hannibal’s shoulders to his back and makes a small sound when Hannibal hisses in pain.

"I'm sorry -"

"Hush," Hannibal hums soft against him, avoids another kiss only to bring his lips to Will’s jaw instead, to his throat, tickling there and feeling Will’s pulse hammer. It feels good, warm and slick together as they are. It feels special. Hannibal turns his hips, parts his lips in his own pleasure as Will moans softly beneath him and brings his hands to Hannibal's hair. 

"Will," he sighs, soft, pleading, that once this is done, once they have become this, that Will will live, that he will grow in his faith and strength. "My Will -"

"Yes," Will whispers, rutting against Hannibal's belly with a shuddering moan. "Yes."

Not William.

Not Father Graham.

Not brother or priest or confessor or heretic.

Just Will, his Will, belonging to Hannibal as wholly as he has for so long only belonged to God and Church.

Will brings his hand between them, seeking with quivering fingers. He feels hairy stomach, and follows the path of curls lower until it grows dense. Stiff skin is pulled taut along the shaft of Hannibal's cock, hard now, larger than Will's own in length and girth. He follows upward across thrumming vein to reach the delicate skin at the top, and the slick head beneath, hot to the touch. Pressing fingertips to the damp slit, Will gasps in sympathy as Hannibal does.

He takes him uncertainly against his palm, fingers curling to stroke.

"Show me," he asks. His smile comes easy, parting into a grin over broad teeth.

Hannibal’s low hum is the only verbal instruction he gives. He brings his hand down to mirror Will’s tentative motions before directing. Squeezing Will tighter so Will squeezes in turn, twisting his wrist gently on the upstroke until Will moans, helpless and soft, muffled against Hannibal’s chest.

With slow direction, Will’s hand grows at once more confident and weaker as pleasure builds. Hannibal continues to kiss him, against fluttering pulse and soft skin, over jutting collarbone and lower still, until Hannibal circles a nipple with the tip of his nose and feels Will squeeze hard against him in surprise.

He is beautiful. Youthful in his innocence and discovery. Alive, entirely, as he has not let himself be for the longest time, if ever. 

Carefully, Hannibal parts his lips against the hard little nub and sucks. 

Will claps his hand across his mouth to muffle the sound that shatters from him. A laugh, a sob, both all at once, as tingling pleasure spreads outward through his body, flushing ruddy. It curls down his spine, upsetting his grip around Hannibal’s firm cock and bucking his hips upward. Slowly, only when certain he won’t make another such sound so loudly he can be heard, Will lowers his hand to Hannibal’s hair and threads his fingers through the soft strands.

Hannibal can taste the beat of his heart beneath, thudding heavy against his tongue and lips swollen from their ceaseless kissing. His little priest seems to rise beneath him, summoned forth to truly live from his past life of waking death. He tilts his head to watch Hannibal, and bites back a helpless whimper when their gazes meet.

“I didn’t know,” he manages in a choked whisper, grinning effortlessly, shy and sweet. It falters only when Hannibal tugs Will’s nipple between his teeth and stops the little priest’s voice entirely, his breath, nearly his heart along with it.

There is so much he does not know. So much that he has denied himself for righteousness. So much that in this moment he wants to know the shape of, burning heat inside him, its entire length and breadth. Curling his spine, he guides his cock into the tunnel of Hannibal’s hand, and pulls him by his hair not to kiss again but to seek lower instead.

Hannibal rises along the length of Will’s body, and the little priest nuzzles seeking against the silky curls of hair tangled across his chest. Hannibal could pin him. Turn him. Bend him. Wound him. Will would allow it all and yet knows intrinsically that Hannibal would not hurt him in that way, not now when there are so few hours before dawn. He thinks of it anyway, and revels in the thrill of power that comes with the push of another man’s body against his own.

Hannibal lays against Will close, pressing him to the bed, kissing the side of his face, nuzzling his hair until Will’s hands seek to wrap over Hannibal once more, and Hannibal groans from pain and pleasure both and arches against Will.

Between them, Hannibal slips his hand, and carefully wraps it around them both to stroke, hushing Will with a gentle laugh as he nearly sobs at the sensation. For Will, this is enlightenment, this is pleasure and heat, this is as close to the divine as he had ever thought to come. For Hannibal, seeing Will this way, free and open and alive, this cements his choice. He knows he will not leave his little priest. Not entirely. Never entirely.

He cannot.

"Breathe," Hannibal sighs against him, lips parting in sympathy as Will whimpers against him. "Breathe, Will. Trust me."

Will's eyes flicker open, lashes damp from the extraordinary pleasure that Hannibal's hand, his body, his mind, heart, being has given him. The words tug at him, pulling tighter with every stroke that finds their cocks squeezed together. Hannibal asks him for faith.

Will has long been starved for someone worthy of it.

He lifts his hands to Hannibal's cheeks and answers him with a firm kiss, mouths mashed together, breath quickening into harsh gasps against his doctor's cheek. The tickling of chest hair against his hard nipples and hairless chest, the pressure of their lengths and the ripples of ecstasy each stroke pulls through them both as one...

Will's body jerks tight with a near-pained sound.

Their lips still, ensnared.

Salvation comes to him in the body of a man, heart and soul extended to alleviate the sins of the other. Will's eyes squeeze shut and he trembles higher, back bridged and ejaculation roping thick and warm between them. Tears stripe from the corners of his eyes, and he whimpers, a single note like a voice calling out in the wild.

Hannibal does not take long to follow.

He leans close to kiss the tears from the corners of Will’s eyes, to breathe him in and remember him this way, young and sated and free. He does not want to leave him. He does not want to see him come to harm, but the damage is done, even in retracting his confession he faces a lifetime of torture and agony, and worse, still, for knowing that Will would choose to suffer with him.

He holds his little priest close, as Will’s hands seek over his hair and over his damaged skin, as he whispers fervent prayers and gratitude to both God and himself.

He is beautiful.

Another kiss, another, soothing Will into the bed as Hannibal lays at his side, stroking his hair and running his fingers over his face, memorizing him, allowing Will to do the same.

The prayers shiver forth, as ceaseless as Will's very breath or the beat of his heart. No words of confession or penitence, but praise and thanks, full of a love too long dormant in his heart. The little priest tilts his lips against his doctor's fingers as they pass. He skims a hand along Hannibal's cheek, and touches curious fingertips of the other to his damp belly.

It does not feel filthy. It feels holy, a strange sacrament given by sacrifice.

Bright eyes shine from beneath heavy lids, and Will turns to his side to draw himself close to this man. His doctor. His own confessor and oh, the sweetness of this torment.

"I will sleep here," Will murmurs. "Let them find me. I don’t care. I will not part from you until they drag us away."

Hannibal’s brows draw, and he ducks his head to kiss Will’s, a heavy and lingering thing as he feels Will sigh against him, settle and relax. He cannot let him stay, but he knows that he will not be able to make him go. Not in all the lifetimes either of them would be granted.

With a sigh, Hannibal threads his fingers with Will’s, and gently settles their joined hands near Will’s head, resting heavy atop him. In hours, too few, the sun will rise, and they will be discovered like this. Will would find himself tormented for his desires and freedoms, Hannibal burned at the stake without the eyes of his beautiful little priest sanctifying him, forgiving him.

He cannot.

Not like this.

Not over this.

Hannibal lets go of Will’s hand long enough to reach farther, and when Will lifts it to try to reach once more, Hannibal locks the manacle on him, eyes bright, brows up in sympathy and apology when Will’s lips part.

“Tell them I made you,” he sighs. “Tell them I corrupted you when you showed me kindness. You will not be made an example of, you will not be hurt for this. Let me save you.”

Will jerks against the restraint, iron clattering loudly against the wooden bedpost. A fearful gaze turns wide to Hannibal and then settles to a gentle disbelief, too quickly torn from the brief pleasure they found together, the only time that Will has allowed himself to find it. Their seed is not even dry against his skin and betrayal darkens his expression.

“Hannibal,” Will whispers, shaking his head. “Don’t -”

“What other choice is there?” Hannibal presses his palm to Will’s cheek, easing him back to the pillow, even as the little priest watches him in gentle confusion. “Were we to do as you said, we both would burn.”

“You will.”

“I won’t,” Hannibal whispers, lips brushing across Will’s before they lock together in a firm kiss. Despite his shock, his hurt and his resentment, the little priest pushes upward, body and mouth straining as if to lose himself wholesale in the kiss, wanting this, just this, a moment more, only another moment -

Hannibal tilts their noses together and with the stroke of his thumb across Will’s cheek, he bends back slowly to stand. Will pulls hard against the manacle again, reaching for Hannibal and finding calloused and familiar fingers wrapped around his own. The little priest squeezes hard and pulls, deflating with a helpless sound when Hannibal reluctantly steps away again to dress himself.

“You’re leaving me,” Will whispers. “You’re leaving me here with him. With this.”

"No."

It is wild and unthinkable, it is a sin in itself and yet Hannibal can feel his own faith and fire him through his veins, watching his beautiful little priest rest back in bed with a huff of disbelief and displeasure. He will not leave him. He will not burn.

Hannibal pulls the shirt over his head, fastens the undergarments he had been given as well as he can before leaning in to stroke Will’s hair again, more frantic now in his nervous anticipation, in how close the dawn is now to them.

"My Will, please listen," he whispers. "Please have faith in me as you did a moment ago. Have faith that I will not leave you. I will not let you go."

Will swallows and lets his eyes seek quick between Hannibal’s own. When he leans up, the man kisses him, soft and fond and just enough pressure to push Will down again. Will does not open his eyes for a long moment and when he does, he raises them to the window above them. Hannibal kisses his neck softly as Will's pulse flutters against it.

"Pray for me," Will breathes, and Hannibal nuzzles him warmly to the pillow.

"Every day," whispers Hannibal. "Every day, little priest."


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will dreams every night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boundless love to [Ponfarrtingspock](http://ponfarrtingspock.tumblr.com/) \- thank you for your inspiring commission and for being our friend.
> 
> Endless gratitude to [Noodle](http://noodletheelephant.tumblr.com/) \- we could not do this without you. <3

Hannibal left the room in which they had finally given in to mortal needs and consummated what had grown between them for months. Their eyes met as the doctor spread his fingers and flexed them, lingering a moment more in the doorway. A chill cut through Will as semen dried stiff against his skin, and long after Hannibal's afterimage had faded from the door, Will watched only the darkness.

Will prayed for safety.

Hannibal left the witch-house, and as day burned away night, the guards found the head inquisitor still in bed with his head turned backward. A demonic attack, they thought, some nightmare arisen to come and strike down a lesser monster. Until they found the condemned man missing. Until they found the confessor bound still to the bed, his eyes fixed upon the sky.

Will prayed in thanks.

Hannibal left, and he was only the first. A furor arose when the Prince-Bishop received news of the events in the little town. Will was not charged, but it restored little faith in the processes of uprooting heresy that had been given to them. He did not argue in favor for maintaining it, and within days of his interrogation found himself alone in the witch-house. Wandering the empty halls as if he were a pale and long-forgotten specter, Will held mass and sang hymns as if the echo of his own voice might for a moment make him feel less alone. He slept in the same bed they shared for one beautiful and painless night.

Will prayed for guidance.

And one day, having woken from a dream of soft hands and a voice calling him, Will took his meager belongings and left. 

-

The little church he finds is in need of repair and care, and the farming families that live around it are all too happy to have him. The lord of the land grants his permission for Will to restore the place and hold mass, and he settles into a routine of bringing life and faith back to the little holy place.

A little place for a little priest.

He begins, after clearing the grounds, to plant several small gardens. Some of vegetables, others of beautiful flowering plants, those that flower in spring, others that hold bloom in autumn, so the garden is always pleasant to see, and easy to care for. The last plot he plants with herbs. Valerian and chamomile flowers froth by the church wall, basil and dill and rosemary hold court in the center. He tends it daily, humming hymns, repeating prayers. He finds that the work revives him, exhausts him and keeps his body spry. He finds that when he bends his knees at the altar, he feels the pull of that love that had brought him to God as a young boy, and he could weep for it.

Will dreams every night.

Sometimes memories of pain and grief drag him from sleep, though his heart quickly settles again. He does no harm now, yields no ground to others who do. The townspeople do not fear him, thinking him strange but not the harbinger of terror he once unwillingly was. There is no blood on his hands now, and sleep finds him quickly. More often, he dreams of gentler things. Benedictions pressed into his skin with lips parted in prayer, blessings from a tender palm against his heart. When he wakes on those nights, turning to the cool places in the bed beside him, he asks no forgiveness for the wet heat between his legs. He has done nothing wrong.

The sun has spattered freckles against his skin, cheeks lit warm and ruddy by his time in the sun. Will ducks low to give communion to a small boy, offering him a smile as he drinks, as he eats, as he beams back at the priest who guides him. When he stands again, cassock whispering against his feet, he lifts his eyes to the congregation.

And for a moment, forgets his prayers entirely.

In the back of the little church stands a tall man, proud and strong. He dips his fingers into the Holy Water and makes the sign of the cross. Hannibal's eyes glint crimson as the wine - the blood - that Will gives to the churchgoers. He is grace incarnate, and his smile is sanctification. Will can hardly breathe past his heart, lodged thick and thudding in his throat. His voice cracks before he straightens it again. How can one be expected to adhere to protocol during the occurrence of a miracle? How can one work when one's tested faith has been rewarded?

Will manages, red-cheeked and stammering. He manages, wishing well to the families who know him, standing against the church doors as Hannibal steps further inward, toward the little altar. He manages, and as the last parishioner leaves, Will turns to face the man whose spirit has never left him, but whose form he was certain he would never see again.

He stumbles over his robes in his hurry, laughing - aching - nearly collapsing as he slings his arms around Hannibal's neck.

Strong arms come up to hold him in turn, wrapping entirely around his slight shoulders, pulling him close against a strong chest and beating heart. They stand together like this for moments, neither wanting to let go, to speak, to even breathe, in case they lose this to a fevered dream of aching need.

“Little priest,” Hannibal whispers finally, turning his head against Will’s warm clean curls and not smelling the agonizing fever on him. Not smelling the panic or fear. He pulls back and strokes a hand through the hair instead, gently upsetting it behind Will’s ear, cupping his cheek to look at him fondly. “You’ve been sleeping.”

Will quakes, laughing, tucking his face against Hannibal's neck. He does not flinch to hold Will tight against him, no longer whipped raw, no longer half-starved and weak. Will's voice spills in a small sound, helpless and sweet.

He is strong again.

He is beautiful and proud.

He is here.

"Chamomile and valerian tea," Will whispers. "And lavender beneath my pillow."

He draws back just enough to press their brows together. Noses brushing, Will shakes his head in gentle disbelief. He has not been broken, burned, lost. As he promised he would not. He has not left Will. As he promised he could not.

"I've missed you," Will admits, arms trembling around Hannibal's neck.

Hannibal brings his other hand up to frame Will’s face and holds him that way, alive and safe, healthy and with his faith returned. He looks younger than when Hannibal had first met him, he looks his age, now, not the age of a man burdened with cruel requirements.

With a soft sigh, Hannibal leans in to press their lips together, just a chaste little kiss, but a promise within it, as other promises are sealed by it.

He will not leave.

Not ever again.

“I missed you,” Hannibal replies, smiling wide, before gently pulling back, not to withdraw from Will but rather to see him again. “I had hoped I would find you in Germany, still. I sought for many months once I returned from Italy.”

Will's breath hitches, caught blissfully between a sob and a laugh and not enough of either to be only one. A faint little sound, sweet and small, and he brings their mouths together again, just a touch.

"Not there," he grins, crooked, ducking his head to rub his cheek - now stubbly - against Hannibal's own - now smooth. "Too close to the Mother. And -"

"And?" Hannibal prompts.

"I thought it safer, here, if you ever came to find me again," Will says, pushing a hand up through Hannibal's hair and settling back to his heels, rather than remaining on his toes. He studies the man at length, familiar and yet so changed from how he was years before. It has been years, Will realizes, following the familiar contours of long nose and bowed lips, sharp cheekbones and a stone jaw. His fingers twine in the shots of silver that have threaded grey through Hannibal's hair.

"If?" Hannibal teases.

"When," laughs Will in answer, letting his hands fall to Hannibal's chest. "When you came for me." His heart beats slow, stable. He is alive and well and whole, and Will could fall to his knees in thanks for it. His voice weakens, wonderfully, a rushed whisper now instead - it's how they've always spoken. "Will you stay with me while you're here? I have room to spare and not enough patience after so many years apart from your company."

Hannibal’s smile warms his entire face, narrows his eyes and wrinkles their corners. He swallows gently and inclines his head yes. He will stay with him. He will stay here. He lets Will close up the little church and follows him through the gardens to the smaller house just behind them.

Within, it is sparse, white walls and wooden furniture. Fresh flowers in a glass jar on the windowsill, clean dishes on a towel by the sink. Just a few steps away, the bed, small and well-made, with a homemade quilt atop it, a gift, perhaps, from a parishioner. There are folded clothes atop a trunk, candles on the table and by the bed, a cross against the white wall, the same, Hannibal notes, as the one Will had had with him before.

It feels like coming home.

He lets himself relax, muscle by muscle, breath by breath. When Will asks if he would like tea, he nods, setting his bag by the door.

Will often has church members who visit the house, seeking to speak with him directly about personal matters, whether it’s spiritual or more mundane. Just yesterday, he spent several hours listening to a farmer’s complaints that a neighbor’s sheep are cropping his grains through the fences. It is a quiet life here, with quiet company.

Will swallows back a laugh, hand against his mouth when his fingers won’t stop trembling enough to set the saucers and cups in place quietly.

“I’ve realized something,” Will says, aware of Hannibal’s presence in the door behind him. He knows the width of him, the height. He could trace the shape of his doctor if he were blind.

Hannibal makes a curious sound, and Will keeps his back towards him to hide his smile.

“I don’t know how you take your tea.”

He can hear the amusement in Hannibal’s voice, and it covers him like a warm blanket, reassuring and soft.

“A little milk, if you have it.”

He does. Birds carry on a chorus in the trees outside, dissonant and bright. In the distance a cart clatters against cobblestone, echoing up through the village that’s nestled into a verdant valley. Only when Will has assembled the tea and sets his hands to the table to steady them does he feel his doctor’s energy move closer, soft steps drawing near.

“You can take the bed,” Will tells him, throat clicking as he swallows and slowly turns. “For as long as you need.”

“Thank you.” Hannibal moves close enough to set one hand against the counter, as well, not to box Will in but to be close by. He ducks his head to breathe him in again and then stands straighter. He has missed him. Thinking of his little priest, praying for him, as he had promised. It is a comfortable routine to return to. He feels like he is praying to someone who is listening, again.

He has thought of their shared night, thought of how he wants to just be close to him again, to be able to touch his hair and feel him breathing beside, if nothing else. He doesn’t want anything else, nor does he need it.

“Tell me of your time here.”

Will leans and closes the distance between them. He sets his brow to Hannibal’s shoulder and nuzzles against his collarbone, relieved to see him stand with such ease, no longer battered and bruised. His doctor is every bit as regal as Will had always imagined. To see him this way is a blessing.

God moves in strange ways.

“Every village needs a church,” Will reasons. “This one was bereft, when their priest died. They helped me to rebuild it when it had started to decay. I worked on the house myself.” His lips quirk. “There’s a garden outside. And a goat, who isn’t allowed in the garden.”

He lifts his head and studies Hannibal’s face, enraptured, memorizing him anew.

“I’ve shown people what you showed me,” he says. “When they come to me ailing, seeking prayer. I give them that and the medicines I grow now. They trust me not to lead them astray, and in turn show others what I’ve showed them.” His smile widens a little more, as he watches the wrinkles beside Hannibal’s eyes deepen. “You’ve helped more people than you’ll ever know.”

Through the only man that matters.

Hannibal hums and leans a little more against Will, weight comforting and steady, smiles when Will leans back against him in turn. 

“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, leaving you in that place,” he tells him softly. “I knew you would not be led astray, I knew God would not abandon you. I knew I would come back and find you safe, and hope you would forgive me leaving at all.”

It still aches, the thought that he had left Will thinking he would never see him again. He has prayed for forgiveness daily for it, prayed for Will’s health and happiness, always. He allows a smile, when Will winds his arms around his middle, a silent forgiveness there, too.

“And now I see you pass on knowledge, in every capacity you have it. You are extraordinary.” Hannibal smiles wider when Will laughs against him, and adds, “I had hoped to come seeking a position as a doctor, but I fear you will run circles around me, now, and I needn’t bother.”

Will laughs, as freely as the birds that chatter outside. His hands spread against Hannibal’s back and his brows lift.

“You’re staying?” he asks, and when Hannibal arches a brow higher, smile curving wide, Will shakes his head and grins. “You’re staying. Please stay. I hardly know a thing beyond what you showed me, and the midwives only shove me aside when there’s a birth. It’s probably for the best but,” he laughs again, “they need you here. I need you here.”

Hannibal laughs in turn and shakes his head, but it is hardly a denial. It is so peaceful here, quiet in the village. The church always open but holding mass on Sundays only. He would find easy work here, headaches and scrapes and bruises from working the land. He would deliver children and watch them baptized and watch them grow.

He thinks of Italy. Of his old home and old studio, he thinks of how he had not felt that as his home, anymore, and how this, a place he hardly knows, feels like it entirely.

“Then, perhaps,” he starts, “we could share the bed.”

The words tug Will’s breath free of him, emptying his lungs all at once. Trembling from the intoxication that swirls through him, from having Hannibal so close again after reaching peace with the likelihood of never seeing him again, Will lifts a hand to rest against Hannibal’s chest. He remembers every part of him from that night, small dark nipples stiff beneath a thick swath of soft hair, sharp bones pressing hard angles through delicate skin, how it felt to be bared by him, touched by him, to know mortal pleasure not as a condemning sin but rather as something holy.

Will sacrificed his soul for it, and in all the years spent repairing that sundering, he has not once regretted his choice, nor found himself anything less than grateful for Hannibal sharing it with him.

He wants. Of course he wants, he is caged in worldly flesh as they all are, grounded by it. As he skims his fingers across Hannibal’s collarbone and recalls the feel of it between his lips, as he trails his touch higher to Hannibal’s throat in mirror to the places that Hannibal kissed on his little priest, he smiles, sweetly, gently.

There are greater expressions of love than the physical act. Will has learned, from their shared sacrifices, that the resistance to those human urges - knowing them as sin - is not a retribution. It is a challenge, to elevate love beyond.

He leans closer, lips grazing against Hannibal’s throat as he whispers, with a bittersweet amusement, “I renewed my vow of chastity, when a year had passed without word from you. It was a risk, then, with the Prince-Bishop calling for an accounting of what had occurred - had he wished me executed for it, I’d have died with a mortal sin.” A gentle kiss is touched to Hannibal’s jaw, just beneath his ear. “I would lay with you anyway,” he confesses. “Just like this.”

Hannibal sets a hand to Will’s hair and gently pushes him back, smiling.

“I would not have you break your vow,” he tells him, stroking down to his neck and gently holding against it there, a warm welcome weight. “There are other ways to love, Will. Other ways to lay, than in the -” His smile turns playful for a moment, and Hannibal licks his lips. “Biblical sense.”

Will ducks his head, cheeks darkening rosier than the pink the sun has brought out in them. His smile doesn’t wane, doesn’t falter, even as he lets his lips part and brush beneath Hannibal’s eye, following the curve of his cheekbone.

“It would be difficult,” Will agrees, “to lay with man as one might with woman.”

He is tsk’d affectionately, and laughs. There is no sin in sharing a kiss. No sin in sharing simple touch. There are shades of grey, rather than the black and white that drove Will towards God when he was a fearful child, and older now, he knows that God has not rejected him for his transgressions. All are made in God’s image, in all their variances.

Hannibal’s hands against his back, Hannibal’s lips against his temple, are all the proof Will needs that God has not turned him away.

“I prayed for you,” Will tells him. He hooks his arms around Hannibal’s neck and lets out a laugh as he is lifted to the counter. They nuzzle close, breathing in the other, pressing tight. “Every morning. Every evening. Tell me you’ll stay, and we will say our prayers as one.”

Hannibal wants to think of nothing else but cool mornings, of tending the garden together and drying herbs in the kitchen. Cooking simple meals, milking the goat outside to make cheese and cream. Pressing together in the night as they both dream and sleep in comfort.

“Every morning,” he repeats, “we will break fast together. And every evening we will pray together. For as long as we are allowed this life. With our books and herbs and peace. That, I think, we have deserved.” Hannibal smiles and strokes his palms down Will’s thighs, just to feel them tense and relax again beneath his fingers. He is beautiful. He is beloved.

There is no more that Will wants in this world, and no one else he wants to share it with in this life or the one after. He hooks his legs over Hannibal’s hips, scooting closer, arms curled tight and breath warm against his throat. He will introduce him to the townspeople at next mass, share with them Hannibal’s knowledge and reassure their wariness of new things. The people who come to them will find healing inside and out, and every night, they will find it for themselves together.

“Your tea is cold,” Will whispers, snorting a laugh as Hannibal lifts him from the counter, cassock ruched against his hips.

“Leave it,” Hannibal tells him, carrying him towards the bed. “And I will make the next.”

**Author's Note:**

>  __ **“latibule”**  
>  — (noun, 1623-1691) A lost word, latibule is defined as a hiding place, a space where you find solace. This hiding spot serves to give you warmth and comfort. No soul can find you here, unless you reveal your hidden treasure. A latibule is not limited to a physical room; it could be your blog, your poetry, your mind, or somewhere far more secretive. Be wary of those you confide to about your latibule, only disclose such parts of your heart to those worthy.


End file.
